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MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS
LYRA GERMANICA
HYMNS FOR THE SUNDAYS AND CHIEF FESTIVALS OF THE CHRISTIAN YEAR
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY CATHERINE WINKWORTH
FIRST AND SECOND SERIES IN ONE VOLUME. Crown 8vo, 5s.
FIRST SERIES. Fcp. 8vo, with red borders and gilt edges, 2s. net
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
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MEMORIALS OF TV SISTKHS
SUSANNA AND < \niEUiV WINK WORTH
MAKGAKKT J. SHA
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LONGMANS, GREEN CO,
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1908
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MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS
SUSANNA AND CATHERINE WINKWORTH
EDITED BY THEIR NIECE
MARGARET J. SHAEN
WITH TWO PORTRAITS
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 1908
All rights reserved
to
AD
DILECTAS
IMMORTALITATEM INDUERUNT
290584
PREFACE
IT is thirty years since Catherine Winkworth died, and those who read this book will naturally wonder what is the reason of its tardy appearance.
After her death her eldest sister, Susanna, was asked by many friends whether she could not write some slight memorial of her. With that object in view, Susanna collected all the available letters. Unfortunately the four or five most valuable series had all been destroyed, very possibly because they were so interwoven with confidential matter that their recipients were unwilling they should be seen by any eyes but their own, for during the whole of her life Catherine's sympathy and judgment were sought by all her friends in their most intimate con- cerns. However that may be, Susanna regretfully came to the conclusion that the material no longer existed which would have enabled her to give an adequate picture of her sister. She therefore decided against publication, but she collected a large number of general family letters, such as were of great interest to the immediate relations, though quite unsuitable for a larger circle of readers. To these letters she added the connecting narrative up to the year 1858. Her death, before she was able to complete the story, was a
viii PREFACE
great loss to the interest of the remaining years. A few of the long letters from Susanna herself were not included in her original scheme of the book, but she gave them to me shortly before her death, with permission to include them if I wished to do so.
These privately printed records have been lent to a few friends, and several of these from time to time have expressed a strong wish that a large portion of the book might be published. For many years this seemed impossible, but the weight of such requests gradually accumulated, and the final impetus was given about a year ago by the very warm interest and admiration expressed by Major - General Sir Frederick Maurice. He urged that the picture of family life of sixty years ago had an interest of its own, and to preserve that, I have left in various little details, trivial in themselves, but such as make the general picture more vivid. I can scarcely hope to have steered quite clear between the equal dangers of too much and too little. I have, however, received invaluable help in the repeated prunings necessary to reduce over twelve hundred pages to about a quarter of that amount, from my friends Mrs. Litchfield and Miss Astley, from Mr. W. H. Peet, who has also very kindly supplied the bibliography and many of the footnotes, and most especially from my aunt, Miss Winkworth, the youngest sister of Susanna and Catherine, to whom I am also indebted for the little account of her stepmother, and for most of the connecting links in the last few years.
PREFACE ix
I have not, as a rule, put in signs of omission in the letters, because, from their frequency, they would have been annoying; but I have been care- ful that the meaning of what is left should never be altered by the omissions made.
I desire heartily to thank Sir Maurice de Bunsen, Major-General Sir F. Maurice, Miss Gertrude Mar- tineau, Mr. W. Crum Ewing, Sir F. A. Channing, M.P., Mr. J. R. Sterndale Bennett, Mr. Clement Shorter, and Mrs. J. A. Symonds for their courteous permission to publish various letters which much enhance whatever value this book may possess.
MARGARET JOSEPHINE SHAEN.
ARISAIG, July ist, 1908.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
1827-1844 Birth and parentage — Early days — Mother's death . . 1
CHAPTER II
1845-1847
Father's second marriage — Dresden — Ambleside — Lessons from Dr. Martineau and Rev. Wm. Gaskell — Mrs. Gaskell 14
CHAPTER III
1848-1849
Illness — Mrs. Shaen of Crix — " Mary Barton " — Alderley — Niebuhr's Life — Travers Madge — Mazzini — London and Mrs. Gaskell — Breakfast with Rogers — A. J. Scott — Ventnor — Chevalier Bunsen ..... 28
CHAPTER IV
1850-1851
"Phases of Faith " — Malvern— " Alton Locke" — J. A. Froude — Bonn — Prince of Prussia — Emily's marriage — Hungarian War — Kossuth — Mazzini — Louis Blanc . 54
CHAPTER V
1852-1854
Susanna in London — " Theologia Germanica " — Windermere —District visiting — Mrs. Gaskell's "Ruth"— J. J. Tayler— F. D. Maurice — Charles Kingsley— Charlotte Bronte's marriage — Visit to Bunsen .... 85
xii CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI 1854-1855
" Lyra Germanica " — " Tauler's Life " — Florence Nightingale — "Life of Luther" — Working Men's College — Bunsen's " Zeichen der Zeit " — James Nasmyth . . . .119
CHAPTER VII
1856
Bunsen and " The Chorale Book " — Bunsen's " Signs of the Times" and F. D. Maurice — Susanna on Unitarianism — Heidelberg and German Liberals — Dr. Martineau — "Tauler's Life" 135
CHAPTER VIII
1857-1858
Max Miiller's "German Love" — W. H. Channing — Mrs. Browning at Florence — Source of religious authority — Beethoven's Choral Symphony — Decline of silk trade in Manchester — Dr. Sterndale Bennett — F. D. Maurice on Communion — -Susanna's last visit to Bunsen — Frances Power Cobbe 166
CHAPTER IX
1859-1861
Personal characteristics — Mazzini — Illness — Sir John Law- rence— The Goldschmidts — Bunsen's death — Father's failing health — Removal to Clifton — Miss Cobbe and Theism — R. H. Hutton and Christianity — Bishop Ewing 192
CHAPTER X
1862-1867
Jenny Lind's first appearance — Emily's illness — Visit to the Goldschmidts — Bunsen's faith — Susanna and Miss Cobbe's "Broken Lights"— " Ecce Homo"— Canon Liddon — Froude and Carlyle — " Life of Pastor Fliedner " , 226
CONTENTS xiii
CHAPTER XI
1868-1871
" Free Christian Union " — Educational work — Valley of the Shadow — Father's death — "Christian Singers of Germany " — Otto Goldschmidt's " Ruth " — Keshub Chunder Sen — Visit to the Goldschmidts — Bunsen's "Prayers" 257
CHAPTER XII
1872-1874
Houses for the poor — Death of F. D. Maurice — Ilfracombe — Women's Congress at Darmstadt — Princess Alice — Dream of St. Chrysostom — Schumann Festival at Bonn — Madame Goldschmidt and Joachim — J. A. Symonds — Jacob's Wells Buildings — Letter to P. C. Mozoomdar — J. S. Mill's last essays 284
CHAPTER XIII
1875-1887
At Avignon with Dr. and Mrs. Percival — Cheltenham Ladies' College — Princess Alice in London — At Cannes — Madame Novikoff — Evelyn Abbott and Max Duncker — Catherine's death at Monnetier — Tablet in Bristol Cathedral — Letters from friends — Susanna's death . 323
BIBLIOGRAPHY 333
INDEX 337
PORTRAITS
CATHERINE WINKWORTH Frontispiece
From a Photograph by J. FlSHER, Clifton.
SUSANNA WINKWORTH * To face page 192
From a Photograph by J. FISHER, Clifton.
MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS
CHAPTEE I
1827-1844
/
MY sister Catherine was born in No. 20, Ely Place, Holborn, on the i3th September 1827.
Our father, Henry Winkworth, was then in business as a silk manufacturer, in partnership with his elder brother Thomas, and a Mr. Bell. He was the youngest son of the Rev. William Winkworth, who came of a Berkshire family, of whom he was the last survivor, his only brother, who went into the navy, dying young, unmarried. My grandfather chose the Church, and threw in his lot with the then unpopular Evangelical party; but, a few years after his ordination, was elected by the parishioners, chaplain of St. Saviour's, Southwark. That parish, which was one of the very few in which the parishioners elected the incumbent, was at that time a stronghold of the new Evangelical teaching, which was beginning to convulse the Estab- lishment. Many prophesied that unless its teachers were expelled, the Church would be broken up ; but the prophecy proved futile, as all similar ones have done since. The first sermon ever preached in the Church of England for a Missionary Society was preached in my grandfather's church, and he was the intimate friend of Romaine, Cecil, Newton, Rowland Hill, and the other devoted men who were awakening
2 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1827-44
a new religious life in the nation. He was a fine- looking man, of noble and winning manners, and possessed remarkable influence over those with whom he came in contact. He early received the appoint- ment of chaplain to Horsemonger Lane Gaol, a prison in which many political offenders were confined ; and, in this capacity, he attended the notorious Colonel Despard,1 and was said to have converted him before his execution, and received his confession. The Government valued my grandfather's services so highly that he was marked for promotion, but just as prefer- ment was about to be offered him, he had an apoplectic seizure, and after a few months' illness, died before he was fifty-four, leaving his widow with a very small income on which to bring up four sons under nineteen and a little daughter of seven.
My grandfather left behind him a very valuable library, particularly rich in curious old ecclesiastical books, his family having been connected with the Church for many generations. During my grand- mother's absence from home, her co-executor sold the library in ignorance of its value, and she found it impossible to regain possession of it without a lawsuit, which she could not afford. She has often told us of her grief at this loss, for her sons' sake as well as her own. When they had attained a suitable age her eldest son received from Government an appointment as navy surgeon, her youngest — my father — as clerk in the Transport Office, her other two sons went into business.
Our mother's family was also actively concerned in the great revival which at that time concentrated the best religious life of the nation. Her father,
1 Executed in 1803 for conspiring to murder George III.
1827-44] BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 3
Stephen Dickenson, was the eldest son of a wealthy yeoman, who owned the farm of Stone Court and some outlying property at Pembury, in Kent. When only eighteen, he was turned out of doors penniless, by his father, for becoming a disciple of Whitefield, and refusing to join in any worldly amusements. Having thus no capital, but possessing a great love of books and knowledge, he took a labourer's cottage, where he opened a village school, an innovation in those days, when even respectable farmers' sons were barely taught to read and write. He proved an apt teacher, and his school succeeded so well that in a short time he was able to buy an adjacent piece of waste woodland, which he cleared and brought into cultivation with his own hands with so much skill that it became the most productive hop-garden of the neighbourhood. Adding, by degrees, other bits of land, he gave up his school, and settled at Pembury as one of the small landowners then so numerous in Kent, but now nearly extinct. They were a most independent class of men, and could hold their own, if need were, against both squire and clergyman.
My grandfather Dickenson was a magnificently- built man, handsome, witty, and vehement; strong- willed and high-tempered, but always gentle and deferential to women. He used to tell us much about our grandmother, and made us love her, though we had scarcely known her, as she died when I was five. The view from Pembury to the north was bounded by a long green line of distant downs, on one of which shone a white spire. He would say to us : "Do you see that little white dot on the hillside? That's East Peckham Church, and that's my star: I look at it every day of my life. That's where I first
4 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1827-44
saw your dear grandmother. They put me into a great square pew, just opposite the very sweetest girl I ever looked at; and when it came to the singing, her voice was as sweet as her face. Before the last Psalm was over, I said to myself, * Please the Lord, that woman shall be my wife.' And before the year was out so she was."
He was enthusiastically fond of the country, and would tell us the names of every bird and flower we saw ; but though a capital rider, he would never join in either hunting or shooting, calling them " vain and cruel diversions." He heartily pitied the people who had to live in towns, and always spoke contemptuously of London, as " that big black ant-hill." When my mother married, she went to live there, and he gave her a larger dowry than her sister who was settled in the country, saying : " My dear, it's because I do feel so much for you, being shut out from the sight of the green meadows." Though living quite out of the world of letters, and reading scarcely any but religious books, he cared for every bit of knowledge he could get hold of, and in his old age was delighted to witness the beginnings of the popular education which he had been longing for all his life. I well remember how, in riding along the scattered village, he would pounce down upon the little urchins playing in the road, and put them through an examination in spelling and tables, exclaiming to me sometimes, with a beaming face : " Why, Sukey, I can't puzzle them with spelling any word nowadays ! " He generally ended by stooping down from his horse, and clutching the best boy in his big right hand, lifting him up behind him, then telling him to cling tight, gave him a ride to the next stopping place.
1827-44] BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 5
His youngest brother, Daniel, was also turned out of his father's house, some years later than himself, on account of the change in his religious views. The two brothers became members of the Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel, at Tunbridge Wells, of which they were deacons for more than fifty years, both dying in extreme old age. They were alike men of ardent piety, consistent lives, and intelligence above the average. The life in their households was very similar to that depicted by Mrs. Beecher Stowe in her stories of rural Puritan New England homes. Besides the regular family worship, always conducted extempore by the head of the house, nothing special was under- taken without prayer, and the Scripture injunction, " if any be merry let him sing psalms," was literally followed, hymn singing being the constant recreation when the work of the day was over.
When in old age, they desired to leave a chapel as a legacy to their native village, in which, at that time, according to Evangelical phrase, "the Gospel was not preached " in the parish church. For this purpose our grandfather gave a piece of his land, while Uncle Daniel, who had no land of his own, contributed the bricks and mortar. The vicar, hear- ing of the proposed chapel, was so much incensed that, although under great pecuniary obligations to the Dickensons, he incited Lord Camden's steward to send Daniel Dickenson a notice to quit, unless he desisted from building the chapel. To his wife's lamentations that this meant ruin, our uncle replied : " I was turned out of my father's house at seventeen for my religion, and, if it be the Lord's will, I can be turned out of my farm at seventy for His sake." However, when Lord Camden came to hear of it, he
6 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1827-44
was not inclined to lose so good a tenant, and ordered the notice to be withdrawn.
I have described these Pembury households as showing the influences under which our mother's character was moulded. Thus it will be seen that our childhood was passed in the warmest atmosphere of Evangelical devotion, and our early heroes were all great missionaries or preachers. I remember my father's saying : "I could listen to Mr. Sib thorp (his favourite preacher) on my knees, and heaven seems to open before me as he speaks." While still quite children we were sometimes taken to three services on Sunday, besides teaching in Sunday-school ; l and a missionary meeting at Exeter Hall was the greatest delight of our lives.
My father began life in a Government office, and valued his quiet post in the Civil Service on account of the leisure it gave him for drawing and painting, of which he was very fond. He had, I rather think, been for a short time previously in a merchant's office, but what I distinctly remember hearing from his sister and himself was, that he entered his first situation at seventeen, with a salary of £60 a year, and that he not only never cost his mother anything from that time, remunerating her for his board and lodging, but also contrived to pay for drawing lessons, and to take little walking tours for sketching in his brief holidays. He was all his life, to the last day, pas- sionately fond of travelling, and till quite middle age, he used to say, did not know what it was to tire with walking. He would have liked to be a land- scape painter, but could not aiford it. However, in his leisure hours he sketched a good deal for sale,
1 We were set to teach before we were twelve.
1827-44] EARLY CHILDHOOD 7
in consequence of which we possess hardly any of his earlier drawings, but only those which he did when he resumed his pencil, after the age of seventy.
Catherine was a delicate child, equally remarkable for the lateness of her physical, and the precocity of her mental, development. She had thick, straight, dark-brown hair, and her very large, bright, dark eyes were her chief beauty. I well remember her, at eighteen months, sitting at table in the high chair, eating meat chopped up, and chattering quite plainly, though without a tooth in her head ; neither did she run alone till she was three years old. When our parents went to Manchester, they left Emily and myself behind, with our grandmother Winkworth and her daughter, Aunt Eliza, who had lived with us while in Ely Place, and we went to live at Islington, where Aunt Eliza undertook our education.
Our mother, whose removal to Manchester had separated her from all her own relatives, made a com- panion and friend of Catherine almost from babyhood ; a relation, which certainly stimulated at once the intellectual precocity of the child, and also the natural goodness of her disposition. I have heard many out- side the family declare that she was the most utterly unselfish person they ever knew; and I, who was old enough when she died to be some judge of char- acter, and no longer necessarily to deem my parents infallible, can assert that I never in my life knew any one so absolutely refined in thought and word. She was, too, remarkable for good sense and judg- ment, one to whom every one around her instinctively repaired for sympathy and advice. She was Catherine's first governess. I don't know how soon she began to teach her to read, but as we all could read for our
8 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1827-44
amusement long before we were four years old, it must have been pretty early.
Soon after the removal to Manchester, our brother William was born, and on April 2ist, 1831, our brother Stephen. Catherine was a gentle, obedient child, who not only never gave any trouble, but was of almost as much use as an extra servant in amusing and taking care of her little brothers, who were always felt to be safe when she was with them. From the time they could listen, she used to tell them stories out of her own head, besides retailing to them what informa- tion she had got from books. An old friend has told us how one day (which must have been before she was eight) on coming in he found her seated on a footstool with the Bible on her lap, reading some of the Sermon on the Mount to her two little brothers, who were sitting at her feet. " What, Kate, reading the Bible to your brothers?" "Yes, but I try to choose the parts that are suited to their capacity."
Our father and mother began early and were very assiduous with the religious instruction of their children. We were taught Watts* Catechisms, I believe, from the time we could speak. I know I earned my first Prayer-Book by repeating the Church Catechism without a fault, when I was about seven and a half;1 and I believe Emily, who used with me to repeat the Catechism to our father every Sunday morning after breakfast, obtained hers still younger. Both our parents used often to take us aside to talk to us, pray with us, and explain the Bible to us. The doctrines we were taught were those of the Calvinistic Evangelical School of Newton, Romaine, Toplady, &c.,
1 Susanna was born August 13, 1820; Emily, February n, 1822; Selina, December 4, 1825.— [ED.]
1827-44] CHILDREN'S GAMES 9
but in my mother's teachings, the love of God was so brought out as almost to conceal with its bright- ness the sterner aspects of the creed to which she too subscribed. In fact, she was not altogether so strict and logical a Calvinist as many of her religious friends thought she ought to be, and sometimes she got into disgrace in consequence.
It must not be supposed, however, that so much occupation of our childish minds with religious sub- jects rendered us any the less keen after play. I think the fact that we were allowed to read very few works of fiction — novels and fairy tales being entirely pro- scribed, and story-books nearly so — while we enjoyed unlimited range of pasture in travels and history, had a tendency to stimulate instead of starve our imagina- tive faculties. We lived in a whole realm of fairy- land, while I, at all events, did not even know the word, but called my fairy-land, All-mood. There were fairies of each element, in whom, moreover, we half believed, though consciously the creatures of our own invention, and I well remember picking out the choicest morsels of my bread and throwing them into the nursery fire for the fire-sprites — but secretly, for I had a sort of inkling that I should get into trouble if found out in these fetish rites. My childish remem- brances have often helped me much, as I dare say they have many others, to realize, as I fancy, the inner consciousness of savage or half- civilized tribes. All our games were associated with some sort of story, and my brothers and sisters at Manchester took to dividing out all the realms of Nature among them- selves, each fitting their stories afterwards into their own special possessions. Thus each of the four children had a Continent and a kingdom of Natural History,
10 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1827-44
each choosing their representative beast as " king " of the animals. Catherine was the cleverest inventor of games, and the one she remembered with the greatest delight was called " expeditions." It consisted in teaching the little ones to creep out of bed and room in the early morning so softly that parents and nurses were not awakened, and then to rampage into cup- boards, cellars, outhouses, &c., not accessible to children at other hours ; the great glory of the game being to get back again and into bed undiscovered, before the proper time to rise.
In January 1839 I find that Catherine began a " Personal Journal," which was kept up till 1843. These journals are not in writing, but printing char- acters. They are all in pencil, the writing is excessively minute and excessively neat, there are no faults in spelling, and the most remarkable thing about them is their extreme punctiliousness in the truthfulness of every detail, and the correctness of their punctuation, but they scarcely, I think, betray any sign of her sub- sequent intellectual power. She gives a pretty full chronicle of the daily events and doings of the family, including the servants; often, too, mentioning circum- stances concerning our friends or former servants ; but, for the most part, simply states the facts in the barest possible manner, without description or comment. They contain an almost complete record of the weather from week to week, and frequently, too, give the date of the opening of leaves and blossoming of flowers of the various trees and plants.
The year 1841 opened very brightly; for we were all, especially my dear mother, better in health and spirits than we had been before, since Willy's illness.1
1 He died in August 1839.
1827-44] EARLY EDUCATION 11
Emily and I too were greatly rejoicing that our sadly- interrupted education was to be resumed in the most delightful manner possible by lessons from Mr. Gaskell 1 in History, Composition, and Chemistry, in addition to German and music, over all which we were in the highest state of delight and excitement ; but perhaps even our delight was exceeded by Catherine's when she was allowed to take lessons in Astronomy from our old friend Mr. Wallis, who, in February, came to give a course of Lectures on Astronomy at the Athenseum, and stayed with us for some weeks. He was a man not merely eminent in his own special sciences of Astronomy and Mathematics, but metaphysical, imagi- native, deeply religious and a most eloquent speaker whether in public or private, with the wonderfully keen sympathy and insight into others that accom- panies this type of mind. Lessons on Astronomy and the Use of the Globes, with Keith, Herschel's Astronomy, and Mrs. Somerville's " Connection of the Physical Sciences " for text-books, which Emily and I had taken from him at Islington some years before, had given us our first strong intellectual impulse from without ; and from that time, we had eagerly availed ourselves of what slight opportunities we had had for self- culture in the intervals of our other occupations. Selina and Catherine had heard much of this hero of ours, and hence nothing could have pleased them more than the prospect of learning from him. They attended his lectures at the Athenaeum, of which they took notes, reading at the same time one or two text-books. Mr. Wallis read their notes, explaining anything they had not understood, and was pleased with their com-
1 The Rev. William Gaskell, minister at Cross Street Chapel, Man- chester. His wife was the well-known novelist.
12 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1827-44
positions, but had taken for granted that Catherine's were quite too good to be really the work of a child of her age, and supposed her to be helped by Selina and myself, till one day when the rest of us had been pre- vented from attending the lecture, so that it was evident her notes were all her own. I well remember then the look of astonishment I saw creeping over his face as she read them aloud to him, and how at the end he exclaimed : " My dear child, do you know that God has given you very remarkable abilities ? " proceeding with a solemn little lecture on her responsi- bility for the talents thus committed to her charge ; a lecture she never forgot.
The death of our grandmother Winkworth in February was scarcely an event to be deplored, for her life had long been one of great suffering ; but we were more grieved to hear a few weeks later of my grand- father Dickenson's serious illness. Our mother returned from visiting him in March, hoping he was better, and on Thursday, April 1 5th, we had an evening party ; in preparing for which our mother gave herself a strain, apparently slight, but w7hich produced such serious internal injury, that after four days of great suffering she died on the following Tuesday, April 2 1 st. What our loss was can be better imagined than described.
After some weeks my father consented to the plan proposed by Emily and myself, that instead of engaging a new governess, Emily should undertake to superintend the schoolroom and I to manage the house. We were all so much of one mind that in spite of our youth this arrangement wrorked perfectly well, and we were very happy together so long as it lasted. My father too was naturally brought closer to us and we to him by our mutual loss, especially as he was one of those who,
1827-44] DEATH OF OUR MOTHER 13
shy and reserved with people in general, feel the need of absolute openness and sympathy in one quarter ; so now that she was gone who had shared his every thought, he talked far more freely to us than he had ever done before ; and so did we to him. As house- keeper, I was naturally most of all his companion ; the more so as our tastes were similar and our thoughts were deeply engaged with the same theological inquiries. He had been accustomed to leave all domestic affairs, including education, in the hands of his wife, and he continued much the same system with us. With what- ever aspirations we had in the direction of art, he fully sympathized, and was almost always ready to consent to lessons in music or drawing, but was apt to think the more solid studies on which we were bent, rather superfluous ; fearing in his heart I believe, both that they should lead us into unsafe regions of speculation, and that they should put us out of sympathy with the society in which we found ourselves. Both fears were certainly by no means groundless. But our love of study was not to be quenched by discouragement ; and besides, I had early seen how precarious was the tenure of wealth derived from business with its incessant fluctuations ; how often fortunes were gained and lost around us ; and hence I felt that it was a simple duty for all young people whose incomes depended on such sources, to qualify themselves for earning their own living, whether or not it seemed likely that they would need to do so.
CHAPTER II
1845-1847
IN 1 845 our father married Miss Eliza Leyburn, a lady of suitable age and much personal attraction. She used to tell how in her youth she had had her horoscope cast, and it foretold that she would " marry into a literary family," which prediction she then thought very unlikely to be fulfilled. But she had even in those early days a love of literature herself, for as each poem of Byron's appeared she used to retreat with it to her bedroom to devour it, and never rested till the greater part was committed to memory. She also knew by heart Bloom- field's and other narrative poems, and used to delight her youngest step-daughter by repeating them to her. Even till late in life (she lived to be ninety-four), she would recall some of the poetry with which her memory had been stored. She had a strong sense of humour and of fun, and her amusing impersonations sometimes deceived even the members of her own family who happened not to be in the secret. Such qualities natu- rally endeared her greatly to her grandchildren, and the boys especially found " Grannie " a most stimulating and delightful companion, ready to enter into all kinds of games with them. Her clever fingers too could fashion anything from a doll's rocking-cradle, large enough for a baby, to the daintiest little doll's muff of real feathers. There still exists a good-sized doll's house of three rooms which was entirely put together,
1845-7] YEAR AT DRESDEN 15
papered and furnished, the drawing-room having ele- gant silken sofa and chairs, by her own hands.
In the spring following my father's second marriage it was decided that Selina and Catherine should return with our aunt Eliza Winkworth to Dresden, to spend some months with her and their cousins. This arrange- ment was naturally a subject of great delight to both the girls, and Catherine always looked back to that period as an important epoch in her mental develop- ment, especially with regard to her appreciation of art in its various forms. On their way thither, they extended their acquaintance with architecture by visit- ing various cities in Belgium and Germany. They left Manchester on June 5, 1845, and spent about three weeks in London at our uncle's, visiting for the first time the various sights of London, and crossed to Antwerp on June 27th.
At Dresden Catherine laid aside her Italian, of which she had now a very thorough knowledge, and also her mathematical and scientific studies, but she and Selina took lessons in German and music, to which Selina added painting and singing. Their visit to Dresden was one of great enjoyment on the whole. Besides the lessons which interested them so greatly, they had a very agreeable and intelligent circle of friends, both English and German, and the best possible opportunities for their aesthetic culture in the famous Dresden galleries of painting, various good concerts, and, above all, the opera, where Madame Schrceder-Devrient and others were performing at that time ; and the theatre, where they saw the best actors of Germany, perhaps for tragedy the best of any country — Emil and Edouard Devrient and their company.
After Catherine's return from Dresden in July 1846,
16 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1845-7
we stayed for some time in lodgings at Ambleside, whence she writes : "I have been so happy as to see Wordsworth." The other half of the house was occu- pied by Miss Courtauld, who was a very charming, cultivated, thoughtful person, but even then a great invalid and extremely deaf. A warm friendship sprang up between Miss Courtauld and myself, and we corre- sponded for some years after. But a friendship far more important in its consequences was that with Miss Martineau, to whom I had brought a letter of intro- duction from her brother, Mr. James Martineau. I was frequently at her house, where I met a number of interesting people ; none, however, so interesting as Miss Martineau herself, who, in ordinary intercourse, was one of the most delightful persons imaginable, pouring forth a stream of information, anecdote, and brilliant, witty comment on her tales, in a genial, kindly tone, yet willing to listen also with sympathy and interest to what others had to bring forward. Her "Autobiography" scarcely does her more justice than Mr. Carlyle's "Reminiscences" do him. Both were written when the authors were no longer their true selves, and were a prey to embittering pre-occupations. Mr. Carlyle has been rehabilitated, so to speak, and his real character, with its bright lights and deep shadows faithfully reproduced, in Mr. Froude's admir- able Biography; but Miss Martineau' s reputation has been rather injured than enhanced by the indiscriminat- ing idolatry and partizanship of her friend and editor, Mrs. Chapman, who seems to have seen all her facts only through Miss Martineau's spectacles, and to be quite unable to take any judicial view of matters in which Miss Martineau was at variance with others ; while Miss Martineau's prohibition of publishing her letters
1845-7 HARRIET MARTINEAU 17
and wholesale destruction of her correspondence, it is to be feared, renders any future rectification impossible.1 Such an impartial view was above all needful in the case of Miss Martineau, whose chief defect was her want of fairness towards those who had the misfortune to differ from her on matters of opinion, which often rendered her statements as to such persons really un- trustworthy. Apart from this, she was most kindly, considerate, and sympathetic. Her servants, who mostly lived with her for many years, adored her, and she was extremely beloved among her poorer neigh- bours, with whom she carried on much friendly inter- course, not only visiting and assisting them in their own homes, but doctoring them, giving them courses of lectures on winter evenings, and last, not least, teaching and aiding them to obtain healthy cottages. Her energy and power of continuous labour were at all times (nay, even after her fatal heart-disease was far advanced) something marvellous ; indeed, in this respect, she rivalled her brother, of whom it used to be said by his fellow- students at College, that " Martineau worked twenty-five hours out of the twenty-four." It always has seemed to me that she rivalled him, too, in her vivid imagination and power of making her readers see the scenes she described, and I do not think that she at all does this faculty of hers justice in her own estimate of her talents, while I equally think that she over-rated her powers of reason and judgment. At this date, though she had been introduced to Mr. Atkinson, she had not as yet fallen under his deteriorating influence, but she was very full of stories about mesmerism, and very busy endeavouring to impart to others the benefits
1 See " Harriet Martineau's Autobiography," edited by Maria Weston Chapman. Introduction, vol. i. p. 4.
B
18 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1845-7
she had herself received from it, so that that was a frequent subject of conversation at her house. The first time I ever met Mr. W. R. Greg was there, and he spent half the evening telling me stories about the famous medium, Alexis, reading books laid on his head when his eyes were bandaged, &c., similar to those related by Mrs. Kemble in her "Records of Later Life," with other stories of clairvoyants describing events at a distance.
We remained at Ambleside till September, and had a most delightful summer, making long excursions over the hills in all directions. One specially agree- able excursion stands out in my memory, made with Miss Martineau and Miss Courtauld, &c., to Ulls- water, Airey Force, &c., on returning from which Miss Martineau and I left the others in the carriage, and walked together from Patterdale up to Kirkstone on a most glorious starlight night, when she related to me several passages of her history, which I recognized afterwards in her " Autobiography," but which also dis- closed to me, for the first time, the defects of temper and spirit towards those who had thwarted or differed from her, which detract from the merit of that work. This discovery gave me a bitter pang, for I owed much to her, morally and intellectually, and had loved and revered her from the time when, as a child, I had read with delight her Political Economy Tales.
The following extract is from a letter to Emily, who was travelling with our father and stepmother.
SUSANNA to EMILY at GENEVA
ARDWICK, MANCHESTER, Sept. 2CM, 1846.
Marianne Darbishire tells me Mr. Martineau would like to form a class for young ladies, similar to those he had in Liverpool, and she came to ask if Selina and Kate would
1845-7] LESSONS FROM MR. MARTINEAU 19
join to make up the number. Fancy how my heart jumped at the idea of Mr. Martineau's teaching any tiling ! but especially if it were Composition or Grammar ! I must tell you also that Kate is certainly very anxious to improve herself, so as to be fit to do something, if need be. She takes a reasonable view of things, and is not scared at the idea of attempting anything till she has tried the extent of her powers ; therefore nearly anything proposed to be done with Mr. Martineau, would fall in with her views, though she would prefer Composition to anything. We mentioned the subject to Selina, but she, like a sensible girl, did not entertain it at all, as she really wants to get on with painting. Now, as to myself, you know that whether I fit myself for the higher branches of teaching, or, being in easier circumstances, am left to pursue the objects that my tastes and desires would lead me to, lessons from a man who stands perhaps by him- self in England as a philosophical thinker, would be in- valuable to me. The great difficulty is to bring Papa to consent. Whether he will keep to the forbidding of all fresh lessons except Selina's painting ? But surely it is as necessary for us as for her to have the means of sup- porting ourselves, and I presume Papa would not wish to expose any of us unnecessarily to the chance of having to be private governesses, because we were fit for nothing better ? Pray represent to Papa seriously that I cannot be easy while I could not get my own living without descending far in society, which would be the case at present (owing to my never having received, like the rest, any regular or sound education), and that you know how deficient I am in actual knowledge compared with others who, it is true, may have less natural talent. You know as well as I do, that beside the uncertainties of business, &c., if anything happened to Papa now, we are, according to present arrangements, not adequately provided for, and he knows it too ; so it is but common justice to put into my hands the means of providing for myself. In conclusion I only say : if the Class should turn out
20 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1845-7
to be on Mental Philosophy or Logic, as I think it will, and you should wish to take part in it, and if Papa could only be persuaded to let one of us join, I would give up my place to you when you return.
My father consented to the lessons. The class was arranged for Mr. Martineau, and began in October. Catherine and I joined it at once, and Emily later on. The subject chosen for Mr. Martineau's lectures was Logic; but besides our studies connected with that, he made us write essays for him on given sub- jects, which he read aloud the week after, correcting anything he disapproved in style or thought. This course of lessons was not merely to us the most inter- esting and delightful of our occupations at the time, but formed a very important and beneficial era in the development of our intellectual and spiritual life.
This was especially the case with Catherine. The various influences under which she came at Dresden had thrown her out of the old traditional grooves of thought and feeling in which her childhood had moved, and her whole intellectual being was now in a state of ferment; she had entered on what the Germans call the " Sturm und Drang Periode " of her life. Her early beliefs had been rudely shattered, and she was at this epoch much inclined to replace them by the worship of Art and Culture. Goethe was her chief instructor and guide, and her philosophy was a chaos. Many times in later years she has told me that it was to Mr. Martineau she owed her deliver- ance from this state of mind, with all its dangers. His teaching laid down for her, once for all, the landmarks of mental and moral philosophy, which proved her guide through all the varied schools of
1845-7] MR. MARTINEAITS INFLUENCE 21
speculation with which she came in contact in after life, and she always revered him as the master and helper to whom she owed more perhaps than to any other human being; since his teaching had fixed for her the intellectual foundations of faith. Neverthe- less, I do not think that she at any time adopted Mr. Martineau's views with regard to Christian doctrine or the teachings of Scripture ; and certainly, when by degrees her notions of theology grew clearer and firmer, they rather crystallized into forms of thought, more or less resembling those held by such men as Maurice, Hare, Kingsley, or Baldwin Browrn.
JOURNAL
Deer. 27th, 1846. — Nearly two years have passed since I last opened this little book, and much has changed since then. These two years have certainly been among the most eventful of my life, since they include my first long visit abroad. It would take too long to describe the new world opened to me by my improved knowledge of German, and residence in Dresden, the books I read through, the lessons I took, and the intercourse with our friends. The latter I shall certainly never forget, nor will the effects of the former ever be obliterated.
Jany. 3 1st, 1847. — I am sitting in the drawing-room window, the seat so often mentioned in these papers, the seat where I sat with Ste that evening before my mother's death. I have been looking over some of my old Journals. They sound very strange to me now, some expressions I should almost think affected, if I did not recollect my feelings when I wrote them, and know that they were sincere. But every one changes so much in eight years especially in the eight years eleven to nineteen, — the time which has past with me since I first began a Journal, — that past experiences seem almost as external as if they had belonged to another person.
22 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1845-7
1st May 1847. — A chilly morning for the first of May. The present state of affairs is by no means very encouraging, either at home or abroad. Abroad, there is famine in Ireland, and at least scarcity in England. Failure of the cotton crops, and consequent stoppage of many mills. Derangement of the money market, and consequently un- usual depression of trade. Not one of us is properly happy at present. My greatest consolation is Mr. Martineau's lessons.
In June, Selina and Catherine went on a round of visits in the South, staying with our dear Uncle Daniel for the last time. While in London they had the great pleasure of hearing Jenny Lind.
During the absence of Selina and Catherine my father was taken extremely ill. When able to travel, it was decided that he should go to Ramsgate, and that I should accompany him and our stepmother. This journey was a great disappointment to me, as I was intensely interested in my Greek and Latin, and even more so in the lessons from Mr. Martineau, which were just about to recommence. My father was ordered abroad, and, after much discussion as to our destination, Tours was finally fixed on, and there we remained from October the i6th till the middle of December. We then went to Paris, where we passed our Christmas, only arriving at home a day or two before the outbreak of the French Revolution, in January 1848.
Meanwhile, my sisters at home were enjoying a very bright and busy time. Mr. Gaskell had most kindly proposed to give Emily and Catherine some lessons in Greek, in addition to the literature and science lessons he gave to Selina and Catherine, and they were also attending lessons on mental philosophy
1845-7] REV. W. AND MRS. GASKELL 23
by Mr. Martineau, while Selina was intent on her music and drawing. Another subject of interest was that during this autumn Emerson gave a course of lectures in Manchester, which they attended.
So much for their studies. But they were also seeing very frequently the friends they most cared for ; and especially this was the time when Catherine's intimacy with the Gaskells commenced, an intimacy which proved one of the great sources of happiness in her life. It was under Mr. Gaskell's guidance that she gained her wide and thorough knowledge of English literature, and her keen appreciation of style. Her own mind was stimulated by his rich and varied culture, rare critical power, and exquisite refinement of taste ; and she always felt that to him she owed much of whatever literary power she afterwards possessed. We have often regretted, as many more have done, that his unselfish and lifelong devotion to religious and benevolent labours for others, should have left him so little time and opportunity for original work of his own, especially in history and criticism.
When we first knew Mrs. Gaskell she had not yet become celebrated, but from the earliest days of our intercourse with her we were struck with her genius, and used to say to each other that we were sure she could write books, or do anything else in the world that she liked. And the more we knew of her, the more we admired her. She was a noble - looking woman, with a queenly presence, and her high, broad, serene brow, and finely - cut mobile features, were lighted up by a constantly-varying play of expression as she poured forth her wonderful talk. It was like the gleaming ripple and rush of a clear deep stream in sunshine. Though one of the most brilliant persons
24 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1845-7
I ever saw, she had none of the restlessness and eager- ness that spoils so much of our conversation nowa- days. There was no hurry or high-pressure about her, but she seemed always surrounded by an atmosphere of ease, leisure, and playful geniality, that drew out the best side of every one who was in her company. When you were with her, you felt as if you had twice the life in you that you had at ordinary times. All her great intellectual gifts, — her quick keen observa- tion, her marvellous memory, her wealth of imaginative power, her rare felicity of instinct, her graceful and racy humour, — were so warmed and brightened by sym- pathy and feeling, that while actually with her, you were less conscious of her power than of her charm. No one ever came near her in the gift of telling a story. In her hands the simplest incident, — a meeting in the street, a talk with a factory-girl, a country walk, an old family history, — became picturesque and vivid and interesting. Her fun, her pathos, her graphic touches, her sympathetic insight, were inimitable. When, a few years later, all the world was admiring her novels, we felt that what she had actually published was a mere fraction of what she might have written, had her life been a less many-sided one ; so that fine as it was, it scarcely gave an adequate idea of her highest powers ; but her other occupations left her little time for literary work. Her books, indeed, were only written when all possible domestic and social claims had been satisfied. Not only was she a devoted wife and mother, but her actual household cares were a positive delight to her. She was more proud of her cows and poultry, pigs and vegetables, than of her literary triumphs, and trained a succession of young women into first-rate cooks. Nor did she ever forget
1845-7] SOCIETY IN MANCHESTER 25
the special duties of a minister's wife. Her stories re- veal an intimate knowledge of the lives of the Man- chester artizans or the Cumberland peasants that could only have sprung from personal intercourse ; and she was, in fact, almost adored by the poorer members of her husband's flock, who little knew, while she was listen- ing to their troubles or prescribing for their ailments, how bright a star she was in the great social world. But from the time of her writing " Mary Barton," her society was courted in every direction, and her house became a centre for every notable person who came into the neighbourhood, an advantage of which we often reaped the benefit. Before we knew the Gaskells, our chief intellectual intercourse had been with Mr. Francis Newman, our old friend Mr. Wallis, and some distin- guished men of the Congregational body, who were Professors at the Independent College at Manchester — Drs. Samuel Davidson, Halley, Vaughan, &c. At the Gaskells' we had first met our dear and honoured friends, Mr. J. J. Tayler and Mr. Martineau, in the early days of our acquaintance with them, in 1843. In later times, it was there also that we met Miss Bronte, Miss Bremer, Adelaide Procter, Mrs. Jameson, Mrs. Carlyle, &c., and it was through Mrs. Gaskell that we came to know Chevalier Bunsen.
It may seem strange that among the names of those to whom we thus looked up for intellectual nourish- ment or guidance, none should occur of members of the Church of England. But the fact is, that although, as a Church of England family, the larger half of our acquaintance naturally were of the same persuasion, I cannot recall one distinctly intellectual person among them, either of the laity or clergy. Our Church friends were, many of them, excellent people, and perhaps on
26 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1845-7
the average superior to the average of our orthodox Dissenting friends in education and refinement; but there was not one person of commanding intellect among them. And had there been one preacher of any remarkable power of thought in Manchester or its neighbourhood, I, at all events, should have gone any distance to hear him, but there was none. The Unitarians in Manchester were, as a body, far away superior to any other in intellect, culture, and refine- ment of manners, and certainly did not come behind any other in active philanthropy and earnest efforts for the social improvement of those around them. Most of the German merchants who were among our more intelligent and agreeable acquaintances, belonged either to Mr. Gaskell's or Mr. Tayler's congregation; not that they were all of them Unitarians in opinion, but because they found the preaching there better and more earnest, and the spirit more charitable than in other places of worship.
CATHERINE to SUSANNA
MANCHESTER, i6th Nov. 1847.
Last Tuesday I was asked to the Darbishires', to meet Cobdens, Leislers, Hawkshaws, Gaskells, Mr. Kenrick, &c. It was an eating-tea in the Pompeii room, and we were for- tunate enough to have the principal gentlemen at our table, so of course, before tea was half over, they were deep in a discussion on the present state of the commercial world, which lasted a great part of the evening, and to which we ladies were, as you may suppose, very glad to listen with all our ears. The greater part of it was a regular pitched battle between Mr. Cobden and Mr. Hawkshaw, the latter representing the railway interest, and maintaining that Parliament should never have interfered with railways at all, that they had done and would do a great deal of harm
1845-7] MR. HAWKSHAW AND MR. COBDEN 27
by it, that speculation would be sure to correct itself in the end and much sooner without Government interference than with it ; that the capital locked up in railways was neither so large as was represented, nor so much missed by the other trading classes, and that the free-traders had all de- serted their principles in promoting Government restrictions on railway-companies, and a great deal more which I have not time to repeat. Mr. Cobden of course. took exactly the opposite view — thought that railway companies, as they required privileges from Government in the first instance, —power over the land and so on, — were therefore more amenable to Government than any other branch of trade or commerce; that Parliament had done what it had done towards controlling them very badly and imperfectly, but that it had been too little and too late, not too much or too early, as Mr. Hawkshaw thought. In the course of this, he told us many amusing stories about Parliamentary Committees, railway members, &c. He thinks that we are near the end of the bad times ; Mr. Hawkshaw that they have as yet hardly begun. The latter says they are now on many railways turning off hundreds and thousands of navvies, mechanics, &c., every day. That these are by far the most turbulent classes of the community, that they can get no other work, and that we must expect riots this winter, especially in Lancashire and Yorkshire, such as we have not seen for some time. Mr. C. thinks the cotton trade will revive exactly as the railways decline, and that thus the workpeople turned off from the latter will find employment in the former.
CHAPTEE III
1848-1849
IN January 1848 an illness began destined, alas! to bring all these intellectual and social enjoyments to a premature close, as far as Catherine was con- cerned. It was the second of three long intervals of ill-health from which she had to suffer at the three earlier decades of her life. She had had a long period of delicacy from her tenth to her twelfth year, and now she was to have another from her twentieth to her twenty-second year. No doubt she had been doing too much, and this was the retribu- tion. I do not think, however, that either then or hereafter it was over- study by which she was injured. In her latter years she often expressed to me her strong conviction of the reverse. She said that as far as she could trace, she had never suffered from intellectual occupation, but that whenever she had had the oppor- tunity for it, it had been beneficial to her health; which had on the contrary sometimes suffered from the want of it. But worry or sorrow always told upon her greatly, and also physical over-exertion. At this date, I believe her indisposition was immediately owing to the latter, in the shape of over-walking. The rest of us were, like our father, remarkably good walkers, and in these younger years did not know how much weaker Catherine was, nor the dangers of over- walking to such a constitution as hers, so that we were
not as much upon our guard as we should have been
28
1848-9] VISIT FROM MRS. GASKELL 29
when older and wiser. But we were a set of lively active young people, accustomed to plenty of air and exercise in all weathers, and both she and we had to learn that she could not with impunity do as her sisters did. Two things were remarkable in all her ailments ; first, their scarcely affecting her brain-power at all, even when dangerous to life ; and secondly, that every pain, whether in slight or grave indisposition, was so intensely acute.
It does not appear from her letters that she had entirely to give up her studies this spring, for though they were interrupted in April, when she and I went to New Brighton, she resumed them on our return till the Midsummer holidays. We returned May 2ist, and Catherine writes to Emily : "It made me feel rather uncomfortable to come home, at the end of six weeks, not quite well, when I had hoped to be well in a fort- night. However, I must practise resignation." She had indeed much need for resignation, for nearly two years, instead of two weeks, of more or less ill-health lay before her.
After a time, it was decided that she should go to Southport, as she had no chance of recovery in the heavy air of Manchester and the bustle of home. So she and Emily went thither in September, and there she remained till the January of 1849. In October Mrs. Gaskell paid her a short visit, of which she writes :
SODTHPORT, Oct. 27th, 1848.
Southport has a halo of glory round it in my eyes now, because of Mrs. Gaskell's visit to us. It was so delightful having her here all to ourselves, and we got so intimate together. Everything I see of her makes me admire and love her more. She is so full of information on such
30 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1848-9
various subjects, has seen so many clever and curious people, so much life altogether ; — and then she is so thoro'ly good. Her thoughtful kindness and gentleness to me, because I was ill, was as great as if I were one of her own children. Well ! she certainly is as near per- fection as any one I know, and that is the resume of my opinion on the subject.
A visit which Annie Shaen paid to the Gaskells in November 1 847 was the beginning of our acquaintance with her family. The following April, Emily and Selina went to Crix, her home in Essex, when the friendship between William Shaen and Emily began which was to result in their marriage. The following extract is from a letter of Emily's written on this first of many happy
visits.
j
EMILY to CATHERINE
CRIX, May yrd, 1848.
Mrs. Shaen is a most delightful person, and we have learned to like her better and better ever since we came. To me she seems the genius of the family; says all the wittiest things ; shows by her way of quoting French, Italian, &c., that bringing up nine children has not ob- literated her cultivation, and for her day she must have been a very highly-educated woman. To be sure, she did not marry till she was nine-and-twenty, and knew all sorts of nice people at her father's house — Sir Humphry Davy among the number !
With Emma I have had one regular good hard talk — two or three hours long — beginning about the natural equality of man — she is a great Republican — then on the origin of human rights in general, and those of govern- ments in particular ; capital punishments ; nature of punish- ment in itself ; then of the human will ; and I had just made the discovery that she was a rigid necessarian, when lunch called us back to first principles. She is a decided
1848-9] MRS. GASKELKS "MARY BARTON" 31
Chartist and " Rights of Woman " personage, but has her aristocratic education to thank for a very strong dislike to all improprieties and oddnesses. She quite recognizes the wickedness of making self-development the object of life — to my surprise, for she joins in so many things with the party who do this ; yet even goes further in condemn- ing it than I should dare to do.
The same to the same
PL AS PENRHYN, Nov. yd, 1848.
What do you think ? I'm positive " Mary Barton, a Story of Manchester Life," is by Mrs. Gaskell ! I got hold of it last night going to bed, and knew by the first few words it was hers — about Green Keys Fields and the stile she was describing to Kate and me the other day ; — but we haven't talked a word about it yet, and I don't mean to say I guess it, till I have said all I want about it first. The folks here know it I am sure — they all turned so silent when I began to talk about it at breakfast time, and Mrs. Gaskell suddenly popped down under the table to look for something which I am sure wasn't there. It is exquisitely written, makes one cry rather too much, that is all; the little bits of description perfect ; the dialogue, too, extremely clever, humorous here and there. It was finished a year ago the preface says, and begun three years ago — no doubt to help her to take her thoughts off her poor lost baby.
STEPHEN to CATHERINE
ARDWICK, MANCHESTER, Dec. i6th, 1848.
I thank you for your most welcome letter, which I am now answering at the very earliest opportunity, and will tell you why I did not write before. I was late at the Warehouse till Saty., when I got hold at last of " Mary Barton," and — I beg your pardon — but everybody in the house was beginning continually to talk about it and I
32 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1848-9
forsook you for her. I am sorry (?) to say that on Sunday I could not keep my hands off her, and on Monday I finished her. " Mary Barton " is — too good to be praised ; with that and Mill one would have a library. Only it makes one cry too much.
Catherine returned home early in 1 849, and in the beginning of April, Emily went to stay with our uncle and aunt at Islington, where, of course, William Shaen, who had become engaged to her, was a constant visitor. Mrs. Gaskell was also staying in London for some weeks, and they were often together. Mrs. Gaskell was at the height of her fame and popularity, which brought her into contact with numbers of interesting persons, with many of whom Emily also then became acquainted through her or through William Shaen.1
We were spending the spring and summer in a small cottage which our father had taken at Alderley Edge, about fifteen miles from Manchester, a hill on the edge of Lord Stanley's Park, with a beautiful view over the Cheshire plain below. This led to his build- ing a house there, to which the family moved in June 1850, but I remained behind in Manchester with my brother Stephen until his marriage in 1861.
It was at this time that I began to attempt trans-
1 The most remarkable of the latter group was Joseph Mazzini (1805-1872). When his letters were opened in our Foreign Office in 1844, William Shaen had called upon him to express his indignation at such a breach of English traditions. This led to a very close friendship between them, and Mazzini was continually sending Italian refugees who were in trouble to him for legal help and advice. So much was this the case that William Shaen became known among the Italians in London as "Pangelo salvatore," and at his death in 1887, although it was many years since he had had any personal intercourse with them, the Societa per il Progresso degli Operai Italiani in London, founded by Mazzini, sent a deputation to his funeral with a wreath bearing the Italian colours. — [ED.]
1848-9] BUNSEN AND NIEBUHR 33
lating, with a view to gaining some money of my own by publishing, and many letters passed between us on this subject. In one of mine to Mrs. Gaskell, I had told her how much I was interested in Niebuhr's Life, and wondered if it had been translated. She happened to be spending that evening at the Bunsens', and on her repeating to the Chevalier what I had said, he took up the matter very warmly, telling her that he was ex- tremely anxious to have an English Life of Niebuhr published ; that he had endeavoured to persuade Mrs. Austin to undertake it, as the best translator he knew, but she was otherwise engaged, and so he hoped her young friend would attempt it, and if she proved capable of the task, he should be able and willing to put original matter into her hands that would raise the work above the rank of a mere translation, and render it even more valuable than the German original. Thus encouraged, though with many misgivings as to my own abilities, I set to work. I have mentioned somewhat in detail the circumstances which led to this first effort to write, because it formed an important epoch to both Catherine and myself, being the occasion of my introduction to Bunsen, and, through him, to literary work, which Catherine at a subsequent period also undertook, in great measure through his influence. Another friend who exercised a considerable influ- ence over us at this period, was Travers Madge, the son of an eminent Unitarian minister in London, and from early youth one of William Shaen's most intimate friends. He was brought up for the same profession as his father, and passed through a brilliant career at Manchester New College ; at the close of which, how- ever, he declared his conscientious objection to receiv- ing any of its prizes or any payment for preaching the
34 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1848-9
Gospel, but announced his intention to devote himself to mission work among the poor, while earning his own living. This resolution he carried out, first teaching in Mr. Dowson's school, at Norwich, for two or three years, afterwards learning the printing trade. But from boyhood he had already devoted the whole of his spare time to such work ; even while still at his father's, before going to College, he was constantly seeking out the most distressed abodes in the lowest parts of London, and striving to get hold of the lads he found there with an intense loving sympathy for all forms of misery, which was the secret of the marvellous power he showed through life of touching and raising the souls of all with whom he came in contact. In this London work William Shaen was his coadjutor, and they taught together in the Sunday-school at- tached to Dr. Button's congregation in Little Carter Lane, E.G. In 1848, Travers had returned to Man- chester, and accepted the post of "Home Visitor" to the Lower Moseley Street Sunday-schools, numbering some 1 500 children and young people, drawn from all quarters of that vast city. He at once became the very life of the school. I have never seen anything ap- proaching to the influence he exercised ; the almost worshipping reverence and attachment which he in- spired in those around him from his own utter unsel- fishness, purity, and holiness. Living in a family of our Sunday scholars, respectable factory hands, he denied himself even such fare as they enjoyed, not out of asceticism, but that he might save every penny to help others. Most of those who knew him felt much as a poor woman did, who, when asked by her clergy- man who this Travers was that she thought so much of, replied : " Oh, Sir ! he's an angel from heaven, and
1848-9] TRAVERS MADGE 35
my very particular friend." Under his superintendence the whole town was divided into districts, and some of us Sunday-school teachers undertook to visit every Monday all the absentees of the day before, or any others whose names Travers Madge gave us, and made our report to him the succeeding week.
One of the many classes instituted by him at the Sunday-school was a Bible Class. Its members (with the exception of my brother, who attended Church) consisted of any teachers or elder scholars who chose to join it. Practically, it was almost confined to the teachers who had been scholars. Very few of the gentlemen came, and no lady except myself. Perhaps I may as well explain, that in Manchester it is common for the Sunday scholars to remain such, after they have nearly or quite grown up. It was so especially in our school, where the young people generally stayed on till they married, — the young men sometimes even after. I should think half our school (exclusive of the " Infants ") were over fifteen years of age ; my own class consisted of young women from seventeen to thirty. The school, with its various institutions, was a sort of general meeting-place round which the interests — social, religious, and intellectual — of the young people clustered. There were classes for every evening in the week, not all for study or religion, but some for recreation, such as Singing, and for Natural History which included long walks ; and besides these, we had tea-drinkings for the elder scholars once a month on Sundays, and several times a year on week- days, for special occasions. Thus the young people found their pleasures and formed their acquaintances all in connection with the Sunday- school.1
1 A " Memoir of Travers Madge," by the Rev. Brooke Herford, was published by Johnson & Kawson, Manchester, in 1867, but has long been out of print.
36 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1848-9
SUSANNA to EMILY
MANCHESTER, April i6th, 11.30 P.M., 1849.
I must just write you three words to-night to tell you how very happy I am after our evening at the Taylers'. There was a party there of Mr. Newman's old friends,1 and I went, not expecting to do more than see him, and think- ing he would be so engaged by others that I should not feel as if I ought to be taking the opportunity to talk to him, and yet I have had the best conversation with him I have had since a long, long time ago. He began to talk about the Lancashire Schools Meeting 2 here last week, which of course led to the question of religious and secular education, and the religious state of the people in general. I cannot stop to go into details now, but it was conversa- tion, not merely my listening with gratitude to any pieces of fact he felt inclined to let out to his auditor for the time being, as all our intercourse has been for so long, the few times we have met. It was like the old times and the old feelings back again, only happier than those old talks, because it was more a communion in belief, not in disbelief. Every new thing about him comes to me like something that I knew long before; and yet not quite — it is more like an astronomer going to the stars, and seeing for him- self what he only made out by his telescope before. I always knew that with his character he must work into a region of brightness at last (I always felt more sure of a future life for him than for almost any one else), but I did not expect to see him in it here on earth. He travels as fast spiritually as he does intellectually. I could never have feared for him, but it is a comfort and an encourage -
1 Mr. F. W. Newman had accepted the Professorship of Latin at University College, London, and had therefore quitted Manchester, to our great sorrow. The first edition had appeared some three weeks before of his book entitled, " The Soul, her Sorrows and Aspirations : an Essay towards the Natural History of the Soul, as the True Basis of Theology." It was to this that our conversation referred.
2 Conference of Unitarian Day and Sunday Schools.
1848-9] PREACHING TO THE POOR 37
inent to have hope justified. Oh that I were only sure of being in the same bright path !
Sunday, 5 P.M. — Mr. Newman and I talked last night about preaching to the poor, and exactly agreed in our notion that the great truths of Natural Religion ought to form its subject. He told me that it is his feeling about the religious state of the less cultivated classes of the population in London that has made him write his book. He said, too (what I have so often felt), that what our people most want, even for the cure of their material ills, is moral elevation, and that this cannot be brought about by schools alone, that we want above all things preaching.
I cannot tell yet from the little I have done whether I should ever make really good translations, but I am satisfied that I should very much improve by practice.
It is very difficult to think about oneself without its interfering with duties towards others. It ought not, and need not ; if there were perfect unselfishness and simple desire to do what is right, because it is right, the two classes of duties would be brought into harmony with each other ; but it is very hard to combine great energy in the pursuit of a worthy object, with a quick ear for the calls of duty in other directions, and an immediate yielding of the will to them when heard. I fear rather that if I get translation to do, it will interfere with my Sunday-school and District work, at least with the efficiency of it, which mainly depends upon the amount of previous thought and feeling; but I shall try not to let it do so.
It is terribly discouraging for the prospects of the Sunday-school that Mr. Travers Madge seems quite decided upon leaving.1 No one else has the right idea of setting about the work, and he has, tho' he may carry it out im- perfectly. The rest, with the best intentions in the world,
1 His leaving at this time was occasioned by some ill- judging friends requesting a report of his work, a work which, indeed, could not well have a report. But though he threw up his situation at the school and took one in a bookseller's shop, he continued to work, as he had done before, in his spare hours, spending all his evenings thus, and preaching at the school on Sunday evenings.
38 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1848-9
even with energy and perseverance, have not the perceptions necessary to the tt^ue success of the work. They have not the spirit of prophecy. In this I must except Mr. Tayler, but even he has it not for the poor, only for the cultivated classes. This is where the Unitarians in general are de- ficient ; as to all that can be done by good sense, purity of aim, and personal energy, I get more and more convinced that on the whole they are superior to other classes of Christians. Oh ! if the people would only put me in the place that Mr Madge rejects, I would not tease my friends and the world with bad translations ! l Don't fancy I suppose myself equal to it : I am only speaking of inclina- tions, not of capabilities. I feel little enough of the latter. The only thing in my favour is that my faith, such as it is, has not been moulded into form by educational and traditional influences, or carried out by my own learning and logic, but cast from life's furnace at boiling heat.
EMILY to SUSANNA
May 6th, 1849.
I am getting a more individualized conception of Mazzini than I had, though through the help of imper- fections. Still, as it is only in proportion as one understands people that one can trust them — No, that is not true — but then when one trusts them without understanding, it is because one feels that they speak to that part of one's nature which is above understanding ; and I have never before felt that what I knew of Mazzini did this. I thought he might possibly be an angel, but doubted whether he were not a moon-struck moral dreamer, half deluder, half deluded. Now I feel sure that he is — not an ideal — but an honest and a noble man. His real deep melancholy is the new thing that I have learnt about him ; and this, while it
1 My exclamation above arose from no preposterous idea that I could fill his place, but only that some one was really wanted for the Home Visiting which he was relinquishing, and I should have preferred devoting myself to that to translating.
1848-9] FORSTER OF THE "EXAMINER" 39
is accounted for by the heart- crushing things he has had to live through, also may account for what have been called to you his defects. It may lessen his sympathy for instance, not with the feelings of others, for that it would quicken, but with their everyday interests and thoughts, and so cause his want of practicalness-!
EMILY to CATHERINE
LONDON, May 8^, 1849.
I must tell you how Lily breakfasted at Mr. Rogers's yesterday (you know " Rogers's Breakfasts " are classical things) with Mr. Forster, Mrs. Dickens, and the Macreadys, and the old gentleman is very charming and loquacious and complimentary, and how Lily is going to dine with Mr. Forster 2 at his chambers, and how these chambers are in the Middle Temple, and a most charming place fitted up with the most beautiful editions of the most beautiful books and engravings, and easy- chairs and thick carpets, and how Mr. F. himself is little, and very fat and affected, yet so clever and shrewd and good-hearted and right-minded. He is going to write Lily a long letter pointing out all the faults and weak points in " Mary Barton," as soon as possible — if she can stand it, he says; which she says she can. Mr. Henry Chorley, too, has given her a great dose of literary advice, really valuable, she says. So she is pursuing her studies you see as well as taking her degree. Mr. Chorley asks her whether so much advice does not puzzle her, and prophesies that her next book will be a failure, and the third a higher success than ever. I advise her to miss the second.
1 Emily soon learnt to know Mazzini better, and to reverence him as all who really knew him did.
2 The editor of the Examiner, author of The Life of Charles Dickens, Life of Sir John Eliot, &c., and at this time also reader of MSS. for Chapman & Hall, in which capacity he had recommended their accept- ance of " Mary Barton " for publication.
40 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1848-9
EMILY to SUSANNA
ISLINGTON, May ntht 1849.
This morning I was going with Mrs. Gaskell to Hampton Court, and we called for Mr. Sam. Gaskell to go with us. Mr. Procter [Barry Cornwall] came in while we were there. He has such a nice face, so good and kind and full of feeling ; a little timid look about it, and Mr. S. Gaskell says he has it in his character too. He is oldish now, you know, small, bald, and pink-faced. By-the-bye, do you know his poetry ? Will was reading me some the other night, and it is so beautiful.
EMILY to CATHERINE
ISLINGTON, May i2th, 1849.
Friday I spent at Hampton Court with Mrs. Gaskell. To-day I went to her very early to accompany her and Mr. Tom Taylor to the Academy. He was brought up for an artist, tell Slee, and is " as good as a catalogue " he says, and good enough for anything I say; such a nice fellow; he went on with us to call on Carlyle (wasn't it good of Lily to take me ?), and the man was at home, and came down directly and sat spouting for a good hour. He is not exactly what I expected ; not so hard and wiry- looking, — a redder face and more kindness and softness in it, — rather underhung. It was very like " Past and Present," a regular Jeremiad on the condition of England, Ireland, and the rest of the habitable globe ; in fact I was the least bit in the world disappointed at its being so exactly like his writings. And yet again it was very nice on that very account ; all the old sentences and the queer turns came out so naturally, — are so evidently his first and easiest way of expressing himself. And he lolls and fidgets about in his chair all the time in the most dis- jointed way.
1848-9] SAMUEL ROGERS 41
The next letter was in answer to one from Emily, forwarding me a note from Bunsen to Mrs. Gaskell, in which he urged that the friend, for whom she was making inquiries about Niebuhr's Life and Works, should undertake the translation of the Life forth- with.
SUSANNA to EMILY
ALDERLEY, May 14^, 1849,
It seems so absurd to undertake such a tremendous work, so utterly ignorant as I am whether I could even translate the simplest thing, and yet it is such a chance ! The immediate difficulty is that I don't know how possibly to get the time for what must be done, before going to a publisher to see if he will undertake it. If I were once under engagements, it would be easier for me to make time. But I want you to ask Mrs. Gaskell at once whether Bunsen's idea is to have a complete original Life of Niebuhr written which should be a sort of compilation of these different works [relating to Niebuhr], because you can see with half an eye that that would be a very different affair from simply translating a work all ready to hand. The latter would only require a competent knowledge of German, and some fluency and taste in English composition, but the former would require judgment, literary and historical, and an immense amount of information.
EMILY to CATHERINE
ISLINGTON, May i8£/&, 1849.
Saturday came Stafford House, about which you know. ... At Rogers's too,1 where the drawing-rooms are crowded with pictures, and vases, and busts, and antiques, and little conundrums of all kinds, the walls and floor are pure crimson, not quite without pattern, still it has the richness
1 She had written of the effect of all staircases, galleries, &c., at Stafford House being carpeted with crimson, &c.
42 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1848-9
and beauty of one single colour, instead of the mousseline- de-laine-y effect of most rooms. Wasn't that a nice thing ? that I should see that house, which, in all human pro- bability, must be dismantled before very long, as Mr. Rogers is in his 87 th year already, and is beginning to look infirm. Still he is scarcely deaf at all, does not use glasses, and dines out almost every day. He is very interesting-looking; the whitest head and face I ever saw, and must have been very handsome when young! And then he was young such a very long time ago — that is the greatest interest; remembers having had his hand on Dr. Johnson's knocker, and going away after all without daring to knock, from shyness of seeing the great man; being in Edinburgh, too, at the same time as Burns, and hearing of him as a rough odd person, whom it was hardly worth while to take the trouble to know. He says some of his greatest regrets are at having, from little foolish accidents of this kind, missed seeing many of the greatest men of his youth. Since then, however, I should fancy he had missed as few as any man living. He really seems to have known everybody of whom one hears within the last fifty years; showed us numbers of letters from Sheridan, Walter Scott, Queen Caroline, Byron, &c., &c. Some of the latter were very good, — very bad, I mean. He begins, in answer to some joke of Rogers's : " No, I have not yet taken to wife the Adriatic, but I wish the Adriatic would take my wife, and then I should, &c." Ah, well ! I dare say none of the things would sound witty repeated, but it was interesting to see them just as he dashed them off himself. Then there was another about his wife that was really beautiful — remorseful and sympathizing. The break- fast itself at Rogers's was not particularly brilliant — no remarkable people, — but Mr. Rogers talks very fast himself, mostly anecdotes of all sorts of people.
Ask Lily about the breakfast at Monckton Milnes's, and Professor Whewell, and Guizot, and Archdeacon Hare, and Maurice and Ludlow. Oh ! but I must tell you that these two last are so good ; just as good as one had fancied,
1848-9] REV. A. J. SCOTT 43
which is a comfort. She had good long talks with them, and all about the right things and nothing else. They are now going about to all the lowest "People's Meetings": political, religious, and otherwise; looking at all their publications in order to find out all they can of their real character and wants. They say that hitherto they have met with decidedly the highest principle, especially upon moral subjects, among the Socialists. This agrees with Will's account of the very few Socialists who belong to the Whittington Club.
Do you see the papers regularly now ? Do, pray ; one ought to know every scrap one can of such events as the Roman affairs for instance. It is wonderful [all that the Romans have performed]. But my time is all but up, and I wanted to tell you about Mr. Scott's last sermon. I never heard such bold thinking with such reverent devotional spirit.
The Rev. A. J. Scott, who became afterwards, when first Principal of Owens College, one of our most valued friends, was now preaching in hired rooms in London, without connecting himself with any existing denomination. Brought up in the Established Church of Scotland and educated for the ministry, he had preached in Glasgow (I think for a time in Dr. Chalmers' church) as a licentiate with great acceptance, drawing crowded congregations together by his remark- able eloquence, fervour, and originality of thought, but had found himself unable to take a living in the Scottish Church because he could not sign the Sub- scription required of all incumbents on their induction, to the whole of the Articles contained in the Scotch Symbol of Faith. He next came to London as an assistant or curate to Edward Irving, before the latter had left the Scotch Established Church, but left him when Irving fell into his later extravagances and en-
44 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1848-9
couraged the " speaking with tongues " in his church. Subsequently some hearer of his denounced him to the Scottish Assembly, and after a lengthened trial he was condemned, and expelled from that Church, for the heresy of preaching the doctrine held by the Christian Church at large, that Christ's Atonement was made " for the sins of the whole world," whereas the Scotch " Assembly's Catechism " teaches that it was made only for the sins of the elect. He afterwards took a chapel at Woolwich, where he gathered round him a consider- able congregation, and it is a sufficient testimony to his extraordinary character of intellect to say that he numbered among his occasional hearers and intimate friends such men as Maurice, Carlyle, Thackeray, Hare, Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, and John Sterling. At this time he had left Woolwich, and was preach- ing in Marylebone Literary Institution, and was also then — or soon after — a Professor in London University College. He was a man of wonderfully varied abilities, deeply versed in every branch of the history and literature and philosophies of all the European peoples, but dwelling with special predilec- tion on the history of the Middle Ages and the litera- ture of Italy and Germany. Nor were his artistic interests and sympathies less wide than his historical and philosophical. He was a devoted admirer and discriminating critic of painting, and no less so of music and the drama. Mrs. Fanny Kemble and her brother John, the author of " The History of the Saxons in England," were among his chosen friends, and he was intimate with the Scheffers, and above all with Chopin, whose Life he was engaged upon for some time; but illness prevented his finishing that work, as it did many others which he had begun, and
1848-9] J. A. FROUDE 45
I only name it to show the wide reach of his powers. It is much to be regretted that he has left so little of his writing behind him ; partly owing to the fact that like some others of our widest thinkers, his natural organ of utterance was speech, not writing ; but still more to his constant ill-health, which left him for the most part barely able to get through the lectures on which he depended for his livelihood, and only at long intervals writing for a short time at various works which he contemplated.1 A volume of his " Dis- courses " was edited, with a preface, by Miss Julia Wedgwood, and published by Macmillan, i866.2
SUSANNA to EMILY
MANCHESTER, June 8th, 1849.
Sunday afternoon and evening spent at Mrs. Darbishire's, where we met Mr. Froude, who was staying there. I wish I could describe him to you. He has Markham Sutherland's 3 good without his evil, thoroughly philanthropic, earnest, and practical. He is, however, very reserved. Monday evening at the Darbishires' I met Travers Madge, invited to do Mr. Froude's soul good. I had a long talk with Mr. Froude about the condition of the poor, but I did not get so much out of him, because he began almost directly to
1 See memoir in " Dictionary of National Biography."
2 Mr. Macmillan says : " I recommend you to hear a very remarkable man preach next Sunday night, I mean Professor Scott. His mind is singularly clear, orderly, scientific ; yet he has a most warm, devout, reverent heart. I wish he would write more ; for he is one of the best thinkers of our day. . . . Maurice greatly admires him and thinks him an abler man than himself. But that is not the case." — [" Life of Daniel Macmillan," p. 181.]
3 The hero of Mr. Froude's recent book, "The Nemesis of Faith," on account of writing which he had been compelled to resign his fellow- ship at Exeter College, and was in consequence at this time adrift in the world.
46 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1848-9
catechize me about my District and Sunday-school, &c., so that it was chiefly my replies to his questions about what I had seen. But I can tell you that he feels the im- portance of a religious cultivation for them, just as Mr. Newman and Maurice and Kingsley do, and he was just going, in answer to my question, to tell me his views about religious instruction for them, when Mrs. D. came up with, " I want to break you up here," so we turned our backs to each other. I shall have a whole stock of droll stories to tell you when we meet, and Lily [Mrs. Gaskell] must repeat to you her grave talk with Mr. Froude in the railwa}' carriage. I can only now stop to tell you that he is very good. I didn't feel sure about that at first, but I am now. O how sorry I was not to be fit to talk to him ! but he is quite too high above me for me to be able even to draw him out properly, and I am sure he felt I was too igno- rant to understand him. Then he had a long discussion with Dr. Hodgson and Mr. Ireland, and while Mr. Ewart was talking to me, I kept hearing the words, " Chartism," " Physical Force," "Education," and longing to hear the rest.
Yesterday tried at Niebuhr, but had a headache, so couldn't do it. So read Mr. Froude's " Nemesis of Faith." What a strange, wonderful book ! He is going to Bonn for two years. A fellowship there has been offered him by the Prussian Government, through Bunsen. It's a dreadful pity he should have to leave England.
CATHERINE to EMILY
FERNS COTTAGE, ALDERLEY EDGE, June qth, 1849.
Indeed, I often think I don't deserve half the pity I get from Siischen and you. Since the first four months of my illness, when I was still suffering from fresh recurring disappointments, I have been so very much calmer and " happier in my mind " than for two years before, that I
1848-9] AMBLESIDE AND VENTNOR 47
am sure this long time will look very sunshiny when it is once past, and I have forgotten, as well people always do forget, what constant weariness and a tender place in one's back felt like. The thing about which I feel saddest, is when I think how gentle and patient and unworldly and brave I ought to be with all my experience, and how very far I am from it yet. Oh dear, Mr. Newman opens one's eyes to one's own worldliness far too much for one's comfort, but I can understand what he says, and so there is some hope for improvement. I don't know how it was, but some- how an undefined fear about Mr. N. had grown up in my mind — I believe it was because he seemed to conceal his opinions, — and I was not quite happy when I thought of him, but now I shall always reverence him from the bottom of my heart. I can scarcely conceive an act of greater hero- ism than to open out one's deepest heart as he has done.
In June, Selina stayed for some weeks with Mrs. Gaskell at Skelwith, near Ambleside. The Dukinfield Darbishires had a house near, and, besides their own large party, had with them Mr. Froude, who had given up the fellowship at Bonn in consequence of his en- gagement to Miss Charlotte Grenfell, sister of Mrs. Charles Kingsley, and accepted for a year the post of resident tutor to their sons. The party from the two houses was further enlivened by visits from Mr. Conington, Max Miiller, Mr. Morier, Mr. Frank Holland (afterwards Canon of Canterbury), Miss Julia Wedgwood, and others.
This summer, Emily persuaded our father to have further and better medical advice for Catherine, whom she therefore accompanied to London, where Catherine was placed under the care of Dr. Kigby. He recom- mended their going to Ventnor, where they remained until December, William Shaen spending his autumn holiday there. They found some very kind friends
48 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1848-9
there in the Rev. James White l and his wife, to whom Mrs. Gaskell had given them a letter of introduction, and saw also something of the Dickenses, Thackeray, Mr. Frank Stone, &c., during their stay.
EMILY to SUSANNA
UNDERCLIFFE COTTAGE, VENTNOR, Sept. i$th, 1849.
Mr. White is so thoroughly jolly and clever and hospitable, knows all the clever people in the world besides. Christopher North is the last arrival. He has been telling us that Thackeray is the son of an old Indian Judge, and was keeping his four hunters, dogs, grooms, &c., at Cambridge, quite in the Pendennis style, when he received the news of the loss of all his fortune by the failure of some Indian bank.
You know how very tall Thackeray is — six feet three or four ? A Mr. Higgins, — Jacob Omnium in the Times, — is a great friend of his and full seven feet one. When the Spanish giant was exhibiting in the Strand, the two went together to see him. and walking up to the man at the door, said : " Of course you admit us free, — two of the profession, you see," which he accordingly did. And when Mr. White was in town, — only you don't know what a little round-about he is, — people say they walked down Regent Street with him between them, each taking his arm.
CATHERINE to SUSANNA
VENTNOR, Sept. 20, 1849.
When Emily was walking with Mrs. White yesterday they met Mr. S. and his sisters — the latter reside in Bon- church, and the former is very intimate with, or at least a very old friend of the Whites'. But Mr. W. does not
1 Author of " Landmarks of English History," " Landmarks of the History of Greece," and of several tragedies, some of which were brought out by Macready.
1848-9] INTRODUCTION TO BUNSEN 49
give him by any means a good character. He says he is undoubtedly clever, but that he has no real principles at all, except an intense aversion to evangelical clergymen, and that his one object is to obtain preferment and celebrity. " And so sure enough he has got promoted lately by the Bishop of London — not that it's any honour to have been promoted by that old scoundrel." Of course we wanted to know why the Bishop of London was a scoundrel, and Mr. W. said because he was so bigoted and tyrannical. "Not long ago he sent for a friend of mine, a clergyman in London, and asked whether it was true that he had had Douglas Jerrold and one or two more Punch writers at his house. My friend said it was ; for he's a very sensible man, and would rather associate with clever men than with the old snobs of Archdeacons and so-on — an excellent man he is, too — and the Bishop answered : ' Sir, I don't choose that my clergymen should be clever men themselves, or should associate with clever men, and I beg you to understand that if you continue your acquaintance with such people, you need not look for any preferment at my hands.' So my friend told Lord Lyndhurst of this, and Lord L. got him made an Inspector of Schools." Don't you think this rather an odd style of conversation for a clergyman ?
SUSANNA to EMILY and CATHERINE
MANCHESTER, Thursday, Sept. 2oth, 1849.
Be it known unto you that I have this day seen, heard, talked and shaken hands with — BUNSEN, in propria persond, and that our interview wound up with his asking me to come and see him when I came to London ! ! ! ! Hurrah ! 0 if you were but here to have a skip with me !
Yesterday morning Lily came to say that Bunsen was coming to her at two o'clock, and begged to see "her friend," so I returned with her to be ready to meet him. However, we waited in vain : towards 4 o'clock came Mrs. Schwabe's governess with apologies ; Bishop had kept him
D
50 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1848-9
so long he couldn't come, but Mrs. Schwabe asked Gaskells to breakfast next morning, and to " bring with them her friend that Bunsen wanted to meet." Fancy my terror at having to see him there in public instead of alone at the Gaskells' ! However, I decided to go, spite of terror, and we found only the Bunsen party besides ourselves, and after breakfast Bunsen took me into the library, catechized me as to my notions of how the original German work should be treated, what should be retained, omitted, &c., then expounded to me his views, and, oh ! I haven't time to finish.
He was very kind, has told me of lots of books I ought to read, must read indeed, but above all, wants me to go for six months to Bonn, where he would introduce me to Brandis, who had known Niebuhr better than anybody and could give me more information about his life; and to others of Niebuhr's friends, &c., &c., &c. ; and he spoke again about this to Mrs. Gaskell afterwards, and tells me to write a letter to him which he can forward to Marcus Niebuhr ; but this last part all in such a hurry while the Bishop's carriage was waiting for him, that I have no idea what he wants me to say ; and what on earth I am to do, I don't know.
Sept. 2 ist. — Had just sat down to write to Murray an account of result of yesterday's interview, when in comes Lily with the enclosed note (from Murray declining to take Niebuhr). I confess I am disappointed, for from his first note I quite thought the chances were of his accepting it. However, I don't mean to lose heart, but to try all I can.
This refusal of Murray to undertake the publica- tion of my proposed work was a great blow to me, but Bunsen wished me to try Longmans, who, however, also finally declined it. In fact, I had to learn that it was no use whatever to propose beforehand a work by an unknown author. The whole completed MS. must be sent, to have a chance of acceptance.
1848-9] CHEVALIER BUNSEN 51
SUSANNA to CATHERINE
Saturday, Sept. 22nd, 1849.
After having seen Chevalier Bunsen I can quite under- stand Dr. Arnold's enthusiastic love for him.1 At least heard him, for seeing only would give one very little idea of him. / should never have recognized him from Mr. Scott's description of him as " a fair Napoleon." [On this point I quite altered my opinion afterwards, and it is a fact that his resemblance to the Napoleon family was so strong, that he was once followed through France by spies of the French Government under the Restoration, in the belief that he was one of that family, travelling under a false name for political purposes.] . . . His conversation is about the most constant and rapid pouring forth of facts, ideas, and feelings, in a loud, crackling, inflexible voice, that I ever heard. I do not mean by constant, — that he preaches, like Carlyle or Mr. Ellis. No ; he converses, listens to others as well as talks himself, — only that his mind never seems still for an instant. And when he talks, it is with such rapidity, that the attention of an ordinary person cannot keep up with the flow of his thoughts ; this you will believe, when I tell you that even Lily cannot always keep pace
1 Arnold says of him, writing to Julius Hare (Oct. 7th, 1838) : "In Italy you met Bunsen, and can now sympathize with the all but idolatry with which I regard him. So beautifully good, so wise, and so noble- minded ! I do not believe that any man can have a deeper interest in Rome than I have, yet I envy you nothing so much in your last winter's stay there, as your continued intercourse with Bunsen." — Arnold's Life, vol. i. p. 362. And again, to Rev. J. Hearn : ' ' I could not express my sense of what Bunsen is, without seeming to be exaggerating ; but I think if you could hear and see him, even for one half-hour, you would understand my feeling towards him. He is a man in whom God's graces and gifts are more united than in any other person whom I ever saw. I have seen men as holy, as amiable, as able ; but I never knew one who was all three in so extraordinary a degree, and combined with a knowledge of things, new and old, sacred and profane, so rich, so accurate, so profound, that I never knew it equalled or approached by any man." — Vol. ii. p. 140. For the next ten years I was in frequent and intimate intercourse with Bunsen, and could echo Arnold's words.
52 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1848-9
with him, and complains that he talks so fast she cannot recollect what he says. It can be no sinecure to be his secretary, and I fancy his sons have to be considerably on the alert to execute his behests, if they mean to satisfy his demands. I should think he would keep half-a-dozen people going in double-quick time. He speaks too (though not in the least pompously) as one accustomed to command, but withal with such extreme kindness, and every now and then with such unmistakable signs of feeling that I should think those around him would usually feel the strongest inclination to obey his commands.
CATHERINE to ELIZA PATERSON
VENTNOR, September 24, 1849.
Apropos of Mr. Newman, I am charmed with him for sending Susie his book on the Soul and writing to her, since it is very good of him to keep up his friendship for her so long. The other day we were talking to Mr. White about fascinating people, and he suddenly exclaimed, " Well, the most fascinating man I ever saw is Mr. Francis Newman. I have only spent one evening with him, but I never was so taken with any one." And then came quite a little burst of enthusiasm about Mr. N.'s beautiful face and winning smile, which made Emily and me take a fancy to Mr. White on the spot. I dare say you know that Emily met the Dickens' party and a lot more people at Mr. White's last Wednesday evening, and had some talk and danced a quadrille with Mr. Charles Dickens, and you know what he looks like, and that he has a very rapid decided way of talking, and is excessively full of fun and spirits, so much so, that he contrived with the assistance of Mr. Leech, Mr. White, and one or two others, to convert a succession of ordinary quadrilles into a very animated and amusing performance. He has finished his next month's " Copperfield " now, which usually occupies him during the first fortnight of each month, and is now taking out his holiday, in long expeditions and games at " rounders,"
1848-9] CHARLOTTE BRONTE'S NOVELS 53
His house is full of brothers and brothers' families at present. Mrs. White says it is never empty, for they have so many family connections and so many intimate friends, and keep up such constant warm intercourse with them, that they are never without some of them, which all sounds very nice.
The same to the same
16 GREAT ORMOND STREET, 5^ Dec. 1849.
So you like "Shirley" better than "Jane Eyre"; so do I, in some points. In power and in descriptions of scenery, there is nothing in " Shirley " which seems to me to come up to some parts of " Jane Eyre," but then there is nothing also in " Shirley " like the disagreeable parts of "Jane Eyre." The book is infinitely more original and full of character than the ordinary run of novels — it belongs quite to a higher class — but it is also infinitely below such as " Mary Barton " and " Deerbrook." * Caroline and Mr. Helstone are thoroughly good characters. Shirley and Mrs. Pryor are good ideas, but badly worked out — the rest seem to me all exaggerated — Oh, Hortense Moore should be excepted, she is good, too. The conversations seem to me astonishingly poor ; here and there comes an eloquent speech, as in Shirley's conversation with Mr. Yorke, but the stiffness and dryness of the whole book, its utter want of brilliancy of wit or humour, and the unhappy tone of all the meditations, make it altogether painful. That is not, however, so much to be wondered at, when one knows that the author is herself threatened with consumption at this time, and has lost her two sisters, Ellis and Acton Bell, by it. Their real name is Bronte, they are of the Nelson family.
1 By Harriet Martineau.
CHAPTER IV
1850-1851
DURING the autumn of 1849 Catherine's health showed little improvement, and her long illness began to tell more upon her spirits than it had done hitherto. It was indeed sad for her to feel that the best days of her opening womanhood, with all the brightness that should naturally belong to them — all the intellectual occupations in which she took so keen a delight, and all the social pleasures which her sisters were enjoying in so full a measure — had to be spent by her in the struggle to endure sometimes severe suffering, always weakness, languor,, sleeplessness, and general weariness. Nearly two years had now passed in this way, and the longer the trial lasted the sharper grew the strain ; but the following year saw the beginning of brighter days.
She and Emily returned home about December the 7th, to spend the last winter we were ever to have all together, and in the dear old home, before the family were to be separated permanently by my settling down away from the rest. My removal to the little house in Nelson Street, which I was henceforward to occupy with Stephen, was to take place in May, and it was arranged that before the bustle began, Catherine should go with Emily to Malvern, as she was still very far from strong.
CATHERINE to ELIZA PATERSON
MANCHESTER, Feby. 1850.
What do you think I did last night ? Went to Hallo's concert ! Is not that something Avonderful ? I assure you
54
1850-1] THE PRISON PHILANTHROPIST 55
it was so regarded by all the friends I met there. You can't think how I enjoyed hearing a little music again, after a fast of more than two years. It is running in my head this morning and making me feel quite happy.
One of the things Mrs. Gaskell has been busy about is a picture that is going to be painted, or in course of painting, of Mr. Wright, the prison philanthropist.1 She got a very hurried note, a few days ago, from Mr. Tom Taylor, saying that a young artist friend of his, Mr. Watts 2 — (does your uncle know him ?) Mr. Taylor calls him " one of the noblest natures I ever knew, great genius, &c." — having heard of Mr. Wright's good deeds, was so struck by them, that he determined to paint a picture of "The Good Samaritan," the Samaritan himself to bevMr. Wright, and to present the picture to some Manchester Institution. Mr. Tom Taylor, however, and some other friends, knowing that Mr. Watts could not well afford to paint for nothing, and wishing to show respect at once to the artist and to the philanthropist, are subscribing to purchase the picture, still meaning to give it to some Manchester Institution.
CATHERINE to SUSANNA
MALVERN, May 2$th, 1850.
Well, as for Mr. Maurice's " Address to the Clergy," I was very glad to find from it that he at least detested all
1 Thomas Wright (1789-1875), the prison philanthropist here men- tioned, was a working man in an iron foundry, who for many years devoted all his spare time — evenings and early mornings — rising at four, before his work at the foundry began at 6 A.M. — to visiting the prisoners in the gaols, and endeavouring to work upon them morally and religiously. His Christ-like sympathy and love did in many cases touch their hearts ; he followed their career after their release, and may truly be said to have been the instrument of saving many souls. After labouring for a number of years in this way, some friends subscribed to give him a pension which should enable him to devote all his time to this, his true vocation. At the time when I began to know him (he was a frequent and always welcome visitor at the Gaskells'), about 1848, he was a beautiful white-haired old man, full of interesting experiences, and with almost as much humour as pathos.
2 G. F. Watts, R. A. The picture is now in the Manchester Corporation Gallery.
56 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
shuffling, and had a true right to be in the Church. I had always had an uneasy feeling that he probably stayed in it by some such excuses as Dr. Arnold framed for himself, and it warms my heart to find how true he is. Only when he speaks with a sort of wonder as to the reasons why laymen allow so much more latitude of interpretation to clergymen than they would ever use themselves, I wonder why he does not see that it is a necessary consequence of the clergymen being obliged to sign all these formularies ; since they all sign the same things and certainly don't all believe the same things, it is the most charitable way of accounting for the phenomenon. It is strange that he does not see that this is a very strong argument against tests, while he depicts the abuse that has crept in through them so clearly.
Then, though the doctrine of baptismal regeneration as he holds it (Whately, too, holds the same or something very like it) is a doctrine very easy to understand any one's holding in itself, I never comprehend the Scripture proofs ; perhaps because I have not studied the Scriptures con- troversially. And then, finally, though I quite see what an advantage it gives Mr. Maurice in addressing men who, though baptized, are not converted, to feel that he has this tie of brotherhood with them, and to make them feel it ; yet I cannot tell what he does when he comes to Dissenters ; and I should like to know whether the doctrine exerts any practical influence on his feelings towards pious Dissenters for instance, or towards unbaptized Theists, or whether, in such cases, he falls back on the wider bond that he and they are children of one Father, and feels that enough to unite them. I can fancy that he would do so with a good Deist, but I can less understand his position towards a good Dissenter, whom surely he cannot look on otherwise than as belonging to Christ's Church, a fellow- Christian with himself, and equally assisted by God's Spirit.
I wish I could more clearly understand the intellectual position of such men as he and Mr. Kingsley ; so much of what they say about the Church and about our Lord I like, but I do not see how it all fits together. There is to me,
1850-1] CATHERINE'S IDEAL GARDEN 57
too, judging by his Tracts, and by " The Religions of the World," a curious vagueness about Mr. Maurice's style. He seems to take such pains to guard what he says, and to say it in the simplest language, that I am always expecting a very clear statement, and am surprized, when I come to the end of the sentence, to find it not so clear as I thought it was. This is never the case when it is a moral question that has to be decided, but, as it appears to me, constantly the case where intellectual opinions are concerned. But he must be an extraordinary man to exert such influence over the young men who come in his way, as he appears to have done.
The same to the same
MALVERN, June jth, 1850.
I have now read a good deal of " Phases of Faith." l It is a very strange book, so very open ; here and there so much feeling expressed, and yet a great deal of it is so hard ; which, however, is but proper, where mere reasoning is concerned ; only he never speaks of Christ otherwise than hardly — even depreciatingly ; there is something very pain- ful to me in the tone of all those passages, — they are so different from his manner when he speaks of St. Paul ; that is invariably reverential, even when he is controverting his infallibility.
CATHERINE to ELIZA PATERSON
ADELAIDE HOUSE, GREAT MALVERN, July 14, 1850.
The roses of Malvern are most lovely, and our little garden is full of them. It is just such a garden as Mrs. Gaskell would like, with scarcely any grass in it, but laid out in terraces with narrow gravel walks, and beds of flowers beside them (only some of these terraces have potatoes !). It makes me wish I had a house and garden here, the garden should be laid out in terraces with marble steps leading down from one to the other, and basins of water with fountains, and at the bottom a great sweep of lawn, to give a proper greenness to the whole, and very pretty it would 1 By F. W. Newman.
58 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
be too. Don't laugh at me for making plans for a garden I shall never have. I may defend myself by appealing to so great an example as — Lord Bacon ! ! Didn't he write two whole Essays about a house and garden such as he should like (just as children make plans which they half hope the fairies may realize) and put them in among Essays on Government and all the Virtues ?
July i6th. — Yesterday Emily called on Alice's Miss Martineau * and Miss Pilkington, and had a great deal of talk with them about Mr. Newman's new book, which had made a painful impression on them, and a false one as to his character ; as it would do on every one, I think, who had not read his " Soul " with comprehension, and who was not acquainted with Mr. Newman himself. It made them think him cold and hard, with extraordinary powers of intellect, but without the capacity for deep religious feeling. That was natural, because Mr. N., more than any one I ever knew, has a faculty of separating feeling and reasoning, of looking at things simply on the side of feeling, and of looking at things on which he feels most deeply, simply on the scientific and intellectual side. In the " Phases of Faith " he does the latter, and moreover gives only the negative part of the intellectual side ; it is simply a history of the destructive process in his own mind. It is almost impossible to keep this in mind in reading his " Phases," there is so much to shock one, yet it is also impossible to judge rightly of it without.
1 Miss Rachel Martineau, the eldest of Mr. James Martineau's sisters, for many years kept a boarding-school at Liverpool, which was, I think, about the most admirably managed of any schools I have ever known, both with regard to the thoroughness of the intellectual training imparted, and also the very wise care which Miss Martineau took of the health of her pupils, which was really a sanitary education for them. Several schools came under discussion, but it was finally arranged that Alice went to Miss Martineau's, where, besides the ex- cellent general instruction, she had the advantage of lessons from Mr. Martineau himself, in Latin, mathematics, and history (afterwards from Mr. J. H. Hutton, during Mr. Martineau's absence in Germany), and of learning music from Mr. James Herrmann, the leader of the Liverpool Concerts.
1850-1] MAZZINI 59
EMILY to CATHERINE and SELINA at Malvern
CRIX, August 2yd f 1850.
Everything looks so nice, and the place is so great and high and airy and sounding ; and out of doors it is so heavenly — such trees and shades, and lawns, and flowers, and the whole air palpitating with sweet scents and bright- ness— that altogether I have not felt so like play since I was a child. And when I went into my room there was the table with a beautiful bouquet of Mrs. Shaen's own making, and covered with books — the " Prelude " for my own self, and the " Seven Lamps of Architecture," and all the other things I had wanted to read in this fortnight, and the fourteen days seemed to stretch away before me so long and bright, I could not see to the end of them.
Wednesday. — Well, now I must just tell you how I got here from Malvern. Read [Mazzini's] Rtpubliqiie et Royautt all the way up, got to town in very good time, had tea at Islington, and then Will and I were down at the con- cert-room by half-past seven. When we went in, there was a little man standing on the door-step, ever so much shorter than Will, with his mouth and chin covered with black hair, and Will introduced me to him, and that was Mazzini. Well, altogether he is simply the most wonderful- looking man I ever saw in my life. He may be any height he likes, he is so thoroughly manly-looking, you do not think of it. Forehead high and cliff-like, with caverns underneath for his eyes ; great round temples, with a little scanty black hair straying over them. Altogether a perfectly straight face; straight nose; straight lines across; strong chin; erect-set head ; looks like the sort of man that everybody round him can't help obeying ; strange colour over his face, sort of grey ashy halo, not like the white or yellow paleness one sees always. Then his eyes you know about ; the only ones I ever saw that looked like flames. Well, you have seen his portrait, and there is no other face I can compare him with. All that I can think of have something heavy in them beside his. There are signs of struggle on all
60 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
the grand English faces I know. He is vehement in his ways rather ; at least foreign and quick ; very foreign accent ; full of fun. All the talk nearly about the concert, except at last a few words he said to me about national feeling in Italy. It's because I've heard so much about him beforehand, I dare say, but his eyes made me fairly shiver when he came and sat beside me and looked at me. I was certain before that I had seen finer faces than his, and yet I couldn't help feeling as if I had never seen genius before. In English grand faces it is intellect and thought, the faces seem to stand between you and the soul, and the feeling only comes out sideways. In him it's spirituality and passion that you see. I don't mean that there's not strength too— he looks strong enough for anything — but that's not the thing you notice.
The same to the same
CRIX, August $oth, 1850.
Thanks for Mrs. Gaskell's. Poor Miss Bronte, I cannot get the look of the grey, square, cold, dead-coloured house out of my head. One feels as if one ought to go to her at once, and do something for her. She has friends though now, surely ? I wonder whether she has any unmarried ones ; people who could go and look after her a little if she were ill. Oh dear, if the single sisters in this world were but banded together a little, so that they could help each other out as well as other people, and know how important they were, and what a quantity of work lies ready for them ! One feels that her life at least almost makes one like her books, though one does not want there to be any more Miss Brontes.
CATHERINE to SUSANNA
ALDERLEY, November 2oth, 1850.
There is so much I want to know, that I should like to have two or three years study time, and I never look for- ward beyond that. First of all, I must read Mill's " Political Economy " some day ; and then I want to learn Latin and
1850-1] PLANS FOR THE FUTURE 61
Greek and Drawing, and perhaps I shall have to translate, and then there will be occupation enough ; and so, as I said, I am very well satisfied with my prospects ; though, accord- ing to the doctrines M. and Mrs. P. are preaching to me at this moment, I ought to be very unhappy, because I'm not married, nor likely to be at present. They have been going on at me so about it, in a regular married woman style, which I hate. But reading "Alton Locke" makes one altogether dissatisfied with one's self, and plunges one into the doubts which so often rise up, whether it can be right to devote money and time to anything else than striving to raise up the poor and ignorant, while their condition is so wretched. Such occupations as your present ones are evidently right, because, of all duties to society, there is none greater than preventing the chance of one's wanting charity for support, indeed all your life has been right, tried even by the strictest rules ; and / feel no compunction at anything spent on me in the endeavour to become well again ; it is when I look forward to a life of health that I grow puzzled about duties ; but at least I am certain that home duties are the most imperative.
CATHERINE to EMMA SHAEN
ALDERLEY EDGE, November ijth, 1850.
Now Ein dear, I've made my apron so tidy that Mamma can't disapprove it, and talked to my workwoman about high bodices, and new fashions of sleeves, and written to Hannah Tayler, so I may take the rest of my time for pleasure and scribble to you a bit. Mamma is going to have a dinner party on Tuesday, whereof the pleasantest part to us is that Mr. Gaskell is to come over in the after- noon and stay all night, but unhappily he must go again next morning on account of his College,1 otherwise we wanted him to stay two or three days here, and he seemed much inclined thereunto.
1 The Unitarian " Home Missionary Board," then recently established, of which Mr. Gaskell was one of the chief founders and Professors; indeed, I believe it was he who first conceived the idea of it.
62 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
I have been reading "Alton Locke." It is a strange book, just of the kind to make all comfortable, respectable people, mad. He praises things always by calling them " democratic," which I confess I don't like myself, because I don't know what's meant by it. It is full of bitter eloquence against the privileged classes of society, and pictures of the condition of the unprivileged, which, alas, one knows from the Morning Chronicle, are not over-drawn. Some things in it I like most extremely. I like the boldness of Mr. Kingsley in writing it. I like its eloquence and some of its pictures and characters, and I thoroughly say " Amen " to the principle which runs all through it, viz. : that the one thing men have to do here, and the only thing worth doing, is to serve God in the way He points out to them, either actively by working and fighting for His kingdom on earth, or, if He ordains, passively by enduring evil, remem- bering that " they also serve who only stand and wait " ; and that the pressure of a huge evil, and your perception of it, are in themselves the truest signs that God means you to do something towards getting rid of it ; if other claims stand in the way, at least by giving all possible encourage- ment and aid to those who are fighting with it. It makes one angry and sad to see how good and sensible persons think sin and misery no business of theirs if the said evils do not absolutely inconvenience them. But there are two other principles implied rather than expressed, in many parts of the book, which I don't like, and don't believe in : first, that all inequality is injustice ; and secondly, that a man has a right to all that is necessary to the development of his natural capabilities. I can hardly believe that Mr. Kingsley himself holds these doctrines, because properly carried out, they are charges against the Divine Government which no religious person could ever make ; for it is clear that God gives some men better gifts than others, and so makes endless inequalities ; and that in His providence He sometimes requires people to give up the opportunities of developing their gifts, and sometimes gives them few opportunities, as in many cases of ill-health. Of course
1850-1] KINGSLEY'S "ALTON LOCKE" 63
every one allows that no one has a right to prevent another from being thus properly developed, and therefore no one can have a right to hold another in slavery, and men cannot have a right so to divide the produce of labour as that the man who has worked hardest can scarcely live as a mere labour-machine, let alone as a man. Then there is a bitterness of tone, and a perpetual lumping together of all the rich and educated, as if they were all alike selfish and careless, and an ignoring of the distinctions of class and life above that of the artisan and labourer, which are as common and as unjust as the opposite faults of high Tory papers of speaking of all below " gentry " as if they were the same class, and attributing to all the faults of some. It is quite true that Kingsley introduces some very noble characters who are lords and ladies (though he has not a good word for us unfortunate commercial people), and so shows that he does not really think the rich all alike. Still, in his moral- izing sentences, he always adopts the other tone. After all, it is a grand thing to see that men are awake and setting hard to work to wake up others, and I should think " Alton Locke " would rouse a good many.
The same to the same
ALDERLEY EDGE, Jan. 15^/1, 1851.
Here days go by without a caller, and we never have more than one in a day, and we should feel quite dissipated otherwise, if more than one came. The rest go out to the quietest teas in the world sometimes ; but I always decline, and so have very quiet evenings now and then. I have had indeed a great temptation to depart from my rules, in the shape of an invitation to the Froudes' with Selina. Mrs. F. wrote to Susie asking her to come and stay with them this winter, and if she couldn't, Selina, and adding that they thought the bracing mountain air would be very good for " the invalid sister," if she would come ; she should have a room to herself, &c., &c.; so exceedingly kindly said, that I was seized with an extreme desire to accompany Selina,
64 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
and see the mountains in their winter grandeur. But then it would not have done to leave home again so soon after I had been away so long last summer, so I said, "Avaunt, Tempter ! " But Selina accepted, and is going, I think, on Monday.
Tell Lily that I think " The Heart of John Middleton " one of the most beautiful things I ever read in my life, quite perfect of its kind. That reminds me of " Pendennis " (by the rule of contraries, I suppose). / hate the ending, though I admire the book altogether extremely; indeed, I admire it a great deal more than I like it, as is the case with all Thackeray's books that I have read ; and I like it a great deal more than "Vanity Fair." But one does so long in his works for a little genial, happy, rational life; if he describes anything unworldly, he gets so sentimental over it directly, and it really is a one-sided view of life to leave all this completely out. His tone is too uniform, one wants relief. But having once made this exception, one can only admire his wonderful power, his humour, the individuality of all his characters, his extraordinary powers of observation, &c., &'c. ; in this respect far beyond Dickens, I think, though Dickens is so often praised for it. We've just got " Olive," l and I mean to like it for the writer's sake.
SELINA to SUSANNA
ALDERLEY EDGE, February i?th, 1851.
Well, I know you want to hear about the Froudes. In the first place, they are as happy alone with each other and the baby as it is possible for two human creatures to be. We were quite quiet all the time I staid there — nearly a month. In the morning, Mrs. F. and I sat together, wrote, read,
1 By Miss Mulock, afterwards Mrs. Craik. We had been hearing much of her just then from Mrs. Gaskell, who had been meeting her and Miss Frances Martin in London, as two handsome young girls, living in lodgings by themselves, writing books, and going about in society in the most independent manner, with their latch-key. Such a phenomenon was rare, perhaps unexampled in those days. I believe, too, that at this time she was not only supporting herself but educating a younger brother.
1850-1] SELINA IN WALES 65
worked, talked, and nursed the baby. In the afternoon I walked, generally with only the dog Crib, with whom I formed a mutual attachment, but occasionally with Mr. F., who used to be most good-natured in finding sensible topics of conversation with me, which I straightway let drop from want of sufficient information to pursue the subject. In the evening we ladies worked, while Mr. F. read aloud. He reads ^beautifully. Altogether, it was most extremely pleasant at Plas Gwynant ; such a pretty place it is — nestling down under a wooded hill, close beneath Snowdon, with a waterfall on one side of the house, and a lake in front.
They say Carlyle has made a great friendship with Kingsley on the strength of " Alton Locke," which is said to be much read among the upper classes. The Froudes have just been reading Miss Martineau's new book, called " Man's Nature and Development," and consisting of a corre- spondence between herself and Mr. Atkinson, the mesmerist (whom she used to call at Ambleside — do you remember ? — her dear Atheist philosopher). It takes a thoroughly materialistic view of the nature of man: and, at the end, Miss Martineau expresses a strong sense of relief and freedom at escaping from belief in God and a future life. What will her brother say ?
Mr. Froude was so shocked that he straightway sat down and wrote what was first intended to be a review, but afterwards (so Mrs. Froude told me, for I did not read it) grew into a defence of Christianity; so he took out the part of it referring to Miss M., and sent the rest to the Leader, signed F. He does not think there is power enough in the book to produce much effect ; but I should fear her name would give it full effect, especially among the lower classes, who would not be shocked either at the flippancy of the style. Mr. Froude says he thinks that for the next fifty years we shall have many such books, — that this is the warning before the storm of Scepticism, — that it will be an age of Gakrung, moral, social, and political ; that it reminds him of the state of the world before the coming of
E
66 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
Christ. If so, I wish I had lived at some other time. Whatever the Frondes' religion may be, they act as if they had some. Mr. F. reads the Bible every morning in the family — generally out of the Gospels — which he explains to the servants, and then reads some of the Church prayers ; they go to church regularly, and look well after their servants and the poor in the neighbourhood. ... As for the Kingsleys, they are always giving away their money, so that they fear they are too poor to come down and see the Froudes this summer. However, the F.'s say Mr. Kingsley shall come down at all events, to recruit himself; he has been working himself almost to death, what with preaching, visiting the sick, and holding Bible Classes for the young ; teaching the old men of his parish to read, and giving the young men lectures on English History. He must be a glorious man ! Mrs. F. says his only faults are that he has awkward manners and smokes all day long; but in the midst of his duties he finds time to pet his wife, and help her in the housekeeping. In that respect Mrs. F. says he is as good as her own husband ; and certainly I never saw a man equal to Mr. Froude for good-nature and helpfulness in a house, except, perhaps, Will Shaen. It is quite a pleasure to see people so happy as they are.
Chevalier Bunsen had advised my paying a long- visit to Bonn, and I stayed there from August 1850 to May 1851, working at Niebuhr's "Life." I took with me introductions from my pastor, the Kev. J. J. Tayler, to Professors Brandis, Welcker, and other learned men, from whom I received important assist- ance in my work, and much sympathy and kindness. Up to this time my working at Niebuhr had been a complete secret, known only to the Gaskells and Taylers besides my sisters. I felt so sure of failure, I could not bear for even my own people to know that I was writing a book, so had not so much as men-
1850-1] PAPAL AGGRESSION 67
tioned it to my father till I had to speak about going to Bonn.
CATHERINE to SUSANNA at Bonn
THORNFIELD, ALDERLEY EDGE, Nov. i$th, 1850.
Well, I think I can translate something for you ; at all events I should like to try, and I believe I can under- take to give from one to two hours to it every morning, but you must tell me what I am to do at once, if I do it at all. It must be dreadful work having to ask Brandis l all your questions [about Niebuhr] in that public way at dinner-time, with all those young men by. I don't wonder at your feeling frightened out of your wits at speaking to him at all. I am sure it would put all my German out of my head if I had to do it. Thanks for your Schleswig-Holstein information, I am beginning to under- stand a little more than I did. But according to the accounts we hear here, things look very bad in Germany, very like Austria — which means Russia — gaining the upper hand. And it does make one mad to see how really good and sensible Englishmen take it, and how utterly unaware they seem to be how much it is for their own interest to check Russia and cherish constitutional govern- ment in Germany.
The great thing people are talking about here is the im- pudence of the Pope, first the Irish Queen's Colleges, and then his appointment of Bishops and Archbishops for England. The Sunday after the news arrived, almost every minister in London of all denominations preached against Romanism, and Mr. Binneys 2 sermon is quoted with great praise in the highest Church and Tory papers ! ! Then on the 5th of
1 Bunsen had referred me to Brandis for all supplementary informa- tion (which turned out to be the most important) about Niebuhr's life beyond what the German Memoirs contained. On my asking him when I might speak to him, he replied he should always be able to answer questions at dinner ; where, moreover, the party included, besides his own wife and sons, three other young men, and two young ladies.
2 Rev. Thomas Binney (1798-1874), a distinguished dissenting divine.
68 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
November there were extra bonfires everywhere, and in many of the towns grand allegorical processions represent- ing the new Cardinal and Bishops, &c., which were carried up and down, and finally burnt with great acclamation.
The same to the same
ALDERLEY, March i2th, 1851.
Your most welcome epistle is arrived, and how we did rejoice to see it, and how I crowed with laughter and surprise when I came to the waltzing with the Prince of Prussia ! l How did you manage to waltz, my dear ? 2 And how do you like the Prince ? You don't say whether he is likely to turn out a better man than his uncle, — though to be sure his uncle promised well enough at his age ! The aunts have been asking ever since to have your letter read to them, so I read all I could, and tried to conceal the long gaps left out in my reading, but in vain, and, to my infinite amusement, the rank of your partner quite covers the sin of going to a ball and waltzing in their eyes ! Besides, " his uncle, the King, is so religious ! "
The aunts are very good and nice, only Aunt Selina is always making a servant and Aunt Eliza a doctor of herself. And they both look terribly aged, Aunt Eliza especially. They don't say much to us about our religion, only give us a great many little books containing the lives of good people. But it makes me unhappy to think what an idea our aunts will carry away of our life, it must seem so empty and unworthy to them. For in our hurry to get Nessy's presents ready, we have done little but needlework since they came, and as most of it has been done sitting all of us together with Mamma in the mornings, you may think how " unprofitable " our conversation has been.
1 Afterwards the Emperor Frederick.
2 I had never learnt dancing like the rest, owing to the religions scruples of our grandmother, and never danced round dances in Man- chester. Our Pembury aunts, then staying at Alderley, had of course always considered dancing very sinful.
1850-1] THE CROWN PRINCE OF PRUSSIA 69
SUSANNA to EMILY and CATHERINE
BONN, March 22nd, 1851.
I cant let you tell the aunts about my book. It was so bad when I read [parts] to Dr. Perry, I am almost in despair about it, and it turns me quite horrid to think how many people here know of it. Well, I must find something that you can tell them, and as waltzing seems to interest them the most, had better begin with that. At Madame Frank's, it was a beautiful ball. A long ballroom lovelily decked with greenery, opening at either end into a small boudoir-room very richly furnished. The only bad thing was the floor, which was beautifully inlaid parquet, but literally like ice, so that even the best dancers complained, .and the gentlemen slid up to their partners like boys on a pond. We went at 7 o'clock and returned at 4 A.M. ! Supper, which was a most elaborate affair, and laid for the whole of the guests to sit down at once, in the ground-floor rooms, occupied about an hour. The rest of the time we were dancing, and I danced every dance but one quadrille, my partner for the cotillon, which lasted nearly two hours, being the Prince's companion ; but I believe he only took me because the best dancers were already engaged. The Prince, to my extreme astonishment, asked me for one dance without an introduction, so as in duty bound, I took him out first in the cotillon.
Well, as to the Prince, he is a favourite with all classes and parties. Exceedingly good-natured and unaffected, and has such admirable tact, that he always does and says just the right things, and this while as merry and free as any young man need be. All accounts agree that he has very good common sense, but is not half so brilliant as his uncle, who really must be a man of extraordinary talent. Those who are least inclined to favour the young man say that he is good, but insignificant. Dr. Perry, who teaches him English and sees a good deal of him, calls him a noble fellow ; the two young Bunsens say : " Well, if he is not a genius, he is, at all events, no fool J "
70 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
His mother, according to the Bunsens, must be a very superior woman, and liberally inclined ; but she has no influence over the direction of his education, all his in- structors and companions (and he is never without one or other of the latter) being chosen for him by his uncle, the King. They are, I believe, all, especially the Professors, of the Reactionary party. Chevalier Bunsen has corres- ponded with the Princess for fifteen years, so knows her well. As for the King of Prussia, people say that he is half, if not three-quarters, a Roman Catholic ; at the very least, what would be called in England Puseyite-ish.
CATHERINE to EMMA SHAEN
ALDERLEY EDGE, March 2$th, 1851.
We are reading an exceedingly interesting book just now : Eckermann's " Conversations with Goethe." We are reading it in the translation, and have only got part way through the first volume. But somehow, whenever I read anything of Goethe's, it takes hold of me as almost nothing else ever does. All that he says is so deep and significant that it keeps growing in one's mind, and the whole gives one an impression of life so rich and varied, and a range of perception so infinitely beyond anything you ever con- ceive of, that you feel dwarfed into nothing before it, and as if no power of self-assertion were left you. And yet some things he says are very unsatisfactory — for instance, almost everything he says about women — if not down- right bad. Still it is very easy to see what power he must personally have exercised over any woman when he chose, or even without choosing. Other things again sound cold-hearted, yet how could he be cold-hearted and have so many friends? It is curious to observe how he seems to regard his Theory of Colours as amongst the greatest achievements of his life, and yet how rarely one hears of it. I wonder whether it ever has made any progress among scientific men ; do you know ?
Have you read " Merkland " ? I don't think it nearly
1850-1] WORKING AT NIEBUHR 71
so clever as " Mrs. Margaret Maitland," l but there are two very fine characters in it, Mrs. Catherine Douglas and Annie Ross. So you see I read novels and do worsted work, while you study " Political Justice."
The following letter I insert to show how ready Catherine was to take blame to herself and fancy herself selfish on the slightest ground. The proposed summer visit to Crix referred to would have been her first visit for pleasure after three years of illness, but she instantly offered to give it up as soon as she found it was likely to come at the time when we ought to be working together at Niebuhr. Before sending my book to the publishers, I wanted to read it to her, in order to make any corrections that might be desirable as we went along. In the same way she used to read all that she had translated for my correction. For some years we thus corrected together all that we wrote, but did not do so with our later works, as we had obtained experience enough to render it unnecessary.
CATHERINE to SUSANNA
April qth, 1851.
Your letter has come, and what I have said is in part an answer to it. Of course I shall not go to Crix [in June] now, and please don't distress yourself about it— the distress ought to be all on my side, for the only sen- sible and unselfish thing to do, and what you or Emily would have done in my place, would have been to give up all idea of it instantly and never have bothered you with saying a single word on the subject ! I ain very sorry that I did not do so, and all the more now I have read your good, kind letter, never saying a vexed word but trying to alter everything just to suit me. What's
1 Mrs. Oliphant's first novel.
72 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
the use of my writing affectionate letters, I wonder, when I do selfish things. Well, please don't worrit about nay giving it up, for that would only vex me more, and you see my going is really perfectly out of the question. Un- less, indeed, Chapman1 were to write straight back word that he couldn't undertake the work this autumn, which I trust in Heaven he won't, for that would be far worse than giving up a visit like this. Remember, I shall be sure to go some other time, and I can't be very miser- able when you are coming home. My only real uneasiness in the matter is for your health. I fear you will feel so hurried and fatigued, but you shall be cosseted up at Alderley, and no objection will be made by any one there to our working together alone as much as we like ; we shall have the breakfast-room to ourselves. I go back on Monday, and shall instantly set to work for you. I can translate pretty fast. A good deal of Niebuhr I have done at the rate of four pages of the book hi two-and-a- half hours. However, that is not much compared to your ten pages in a day, for I am always tired by the end of three hours, and could never drudge on for seven or eight hours, as you must do to get through what you do. Of course I understand this is not your ordinary style of working, for you could never stand it long ; but don't overdo yourself, for if you fall ill you know that is the greatest possible loss of time. I am reading Oxenford's translation of Eckerrnann's " Conversations with Goethe," an extremely interesting book, but the translation not a bit better, nor so good, I think, as we could do, and yet the Athen&um was mild, and no other paper condemned or quizzed. It has rather encouraged me.
What I originally undertook was to translate the German Memoir by Madame Hensler and such of Niebuhr's Letters and Essays as seemed desirable, from the very voluminous collection of his letters in her
1 Of Chapman & Hall, the publishers of Niebuhr's " Life."
1850-1] EMILY'S MARRIAGE 73
German work. But while I was in Bonn I gained so much fresh information that I decided to throw aside my translation already finished of the Memoir, only incorporating most part of it with the fresh matter, so that the Biography was essentially an ori- ginal work.
Bunsen had wished me to add to the two volumes of Niebuhr's " Life and Letters " a volume of his " Miscellaneous Essays," several of which I had felt it necessary to translate while with Brandis, as they were on learned subjects, contained Greek quotations, &c. This third volume Chapman refused altogether, but it was subsequently published with the second edition of Niebuhr's "Life" in 1852. All this extra work, how- ever, naturally much delayed me, and thus there was still a great deal to be done, while at the same time we were told that it was desirable to send in the work in June. Hence the hurry to which Catherine refers, and her proposal to translate all she could to help me. It was a great sacrifice to her, more than I ought to have let her make, to be working all through the hot weather in Manchester, instead of paying country visits ; but I did not fully realize how trying it would be for her.
Emily was married to William Shaen on September 2nd, and after a short tour in North Devon they settled down in London.
CATHERINE to EMILY
ALDERLEY, Nov. loth, 1851.
I wish it were possible to stop gossip ; the nice little bit going about at present is that Susanna is to bring out a work on Metaphysics at the end of the month. Mr. D. Darbishire talked to Mr. Gaskell about it, and said he also
74 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
understood that her visit to Wales * was to receive Mr. Froude's advice on the subject, " and she might have had a better adviser." Mrs. Schunck and Miss Marsland are " worretting " Hannah Tayler to death about it, and Mr. Martineau asked Alice if it were true. We suppose it must arise from a joking conversation Susi had with Mr. Leisler, in which he said that " after living so long with Brandis,2 of course she ought to be able to write a book on Philo- sophy that would set the world straight," and she promised to send him a copy whenever she did, and he promised to deliver public lectures upon it, &c., &c. Then John Crispe did the stupidest thing that ever came even into his head to do — giving her a large packet of proof-sheets in the Concert Hall, between the parts ! There were several acquaintances near. Miss Satterfield spied it out instantly, said it was proof-sheets, and " done for effect, for of course they were no earthly use there," and others, no doubt, would be equally acute and kind.
The Austro- Hungarian War, alluded to in the suc- ceeding letters, was undertaken by the Hungarians in defence of their immemorial constitutional liberties. It must be remembered that Hungary was never a depend- ency or province of Austria, but an independent king- dom, only united to Austria in virtue of the Hungarians having elected Austrian sovereigns as their monarchs, while retaining their own parliaments and laws.
The constant efforts, however, of the Austrian princes to overthrow the liberties of the Hungarians, culminated in 1848, when the newly-appointed Emperor, Francis Joseph, not only refused to take the customary oath as King of Hungary, to preserve its laws and constitution,
1 I had been for a month's visit to the Froudes', at Plas Gwynant, near Beddgelert, in October; where, for the first half of my visit, Mr. Arthur Hugh Clough was my fellow visitor, and for the latter half, Mr. Max Miiller.
2 Brandis's special subject was Aristotle's Philosophy.
1850-1] HUNGARIAN WAR 75
but actually nominated Jellachich, Ban of Croatia — who, having been in open rebellion against Hungary in the spring of the same year,1 had been declared a rebel and traitor by the Austrian Government — his pleni- potentiary and substitute in Hungary ; suspending by this act all the institutions of the country, and placing it under martial law. No doubt the main incentive to this attempt to destroy the independence of Hungary and incorporate it with Austria, was the fact that the Hungarians had entered on a course of internal reform, when, in 1847, before the outbreak of the European revolution, the Hungarian peasantry had been emanci- pated, and, in the spring of 1848, a fair representation of the people had been guaranteed in the hitherto aristocratic Parliament, equality before the law pro- claimed, freedom of the press decreed, and trial by jury established, with sundry other reforms.
When the young Emperor had thus definitely broken faith with Hungary, the Diet at Pesth appointed a Pro- visional Government, under Kossuth and Count Louis Batthyanyi. They had not yet renounced all confidence in the then Viceroy of Hungary, the Palatine Archduke Stephen, who had promised to defend the Hungarian cause, and whom they would have been inclined to raise to the throne had he remained faithful to his promises. But instead of that he treacherously fled, with the troops under his command, in September 1848. Jellachich crossed the Drave on September 9th, was signally defeated on the 29th, and asked for an armistice, but instead of employing it for negotiating a peace, broke his word, and fled in the night, with a large portion of his troops, across the Austrian frontier. The war continued with varying fortunes through the
1 On acaount of the liberal measures of the Hungarian Government.
76 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
winter of 1 848-49, but, on the whole, the Hungarians were gaining ground, when, in May 1 849, the Russians came to the assistance of the Austrians, and after many vicissitudes and wonders of heroism on the side of the Hungarian armies, Gorgey surrendered the main army to the Russians on August 1 3th, not without suspicion of treachery.
Kossuth, Andrassy, Bern, and others escaped into Turkey, and General Haynau was appointed military commander over Hungary. He signalized his reign by unheard of exactions and cruelties, including the flog- ging of noble women who had taken part in the defence of their country's liberties, and the judicial murder of Count Louis Batthyanyi, with a number of the most distinguished Hungarian generals and leaders, including Generals Aulich, Kiss, and Damjanitsch, who had been either prisoners of war, or in the fortresses surrendered according to the Articles of War, so that their execution was a distinct act of treachery. In the December of 1849, Count Louis Batthyanyi had gone to the camp of Prince Windischgratz, the Austrian comniander-in- chief, to make a last effort at reconciliation. Yet, though thus under the protection of a parley, he was seized and imprisoned, and subsequently shot, without formal trial. Even the Times declared that such an execution was unparalleled, save by the murder of Count Egmont by the Duke of Alva.
Kossuth and several other Hungarian leaders sub- sequently escaped from Turkey to England. But the Hungarian struggle, though quenched in blood for the time being, had taught the nation its own strength, and educated it in the sentiment of its just rights and claims. Hence the people never acquiesced in their subjugation, but bided their time. That came ten years
1850-1] KOSSUTH IN MANCHESTER 77
later, in 1859, when, during the Italian War between France and Austria, an insurrection in Hungary being imminent, and communications having passed between Kossuth and Louis Napoleon, the Emperor of Austria suddenly began to promise various reforms in Hungary, and after many negotiations with the Diet, the restora- tion of the Hungarian Constitution was promised in the autumn of 1860, though it was not until January 1867 that the old Constitution of 1848 was definitively re-established, and an independent ministry formed, with Count Andrassy at its head.
The War of Independence was full of the most heart- stirring incidents, and was watched with intense interest and sympathy by the majority of Englishmen ; above all by the working classes, wrho followed the course of events with really wonderful intelligence, con- sidering how recent was any close study of Hungarian affairs in this country.
CATHERINE to EMILY
ALDERLEY, November i^th, 1851.
I wonder whether Ste or Selina has written to you already, to tell you of our expedition to hear Kossuth ? but I dare say not, so I shall. We got very good seats just in front. Lily was close to us, with Mrs. Fletcher and Mrs. Davy, and behind them Mr.1 and Mrs. Forster — Jane Arnold that was. When the doors were opened, the rush was tremendous, and, till the meeting began, there was nothing but quarrelling and cries of " Police," &c. How- ever, when Kossuth came in, every one rose and cheered for several minutes, and so again at the beginning and close of his speech. You must read his speech somewhere ; I dare say it will be fully reported in the Times. He spoke for more than an hour, in wonderfully fluent English for a
1 Afterwards the Right Hon. W. E. Forster.
78 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
foreigner, but, unfortunately, he could not make his voice heard through that immense hall, so that a great deal was lost to those at the farther end. We could hear every word, but it required close attention to keep up with him. He looked dreadfully worn and ill ; but your accounts of him had given me a very good idea of his appearance; otherwise I had formerly fancied him a taller, thinner, more scholar-like and less military-looking man. His speech was magnificent, an absolutely satisfactory speech ; not a word that one could have wished altered, not an atom of rant or clap-trap ; and so some people said it was wanting in enthusiasm, but they are fools to say so, and it was not half as much applauded as it ought to have been, because the people in the non-reserved seats couldn't hear him, and the people in the reserved seats followed Mr. Bright, who got into a great hobble with his peace principles. How- ever, he got out of it with saying that public opinion ruled the world, and would overthrow thrones and monarchies, &c., and said some very absurd things about it, which, to my astonishment, were very much applauded.
Well, when Kossuth got up and paid him some com- pliments, he looked very smirking, and for some time cried " Hear, hear," and clapped in the right places, but when Kossuth came to asking " the practical men of Manchester " what was to be the practical issue of this grand demonstra- tion, how would public opinion incarnate itself in energetic action, suggesting that tyrants had never been known to give up their power voluntarily, and that if he, too, hoped for a peaceful solution to the present question, at least as far as England and America were concerned, it would only be if they were known to be united and prepared for com- bined action, that perhaps Russia and Austria would not try the issue of arms with them ; but if they declared they would never, under any emergency, TAKE ACTION, their mere words would be disregarded ; — Mr. Bright turned sulky, and gaped, and talked to his neighbour, and looked at the ceiling for the rest of the speech.
1850-1] MAZZINI AND KOSSUTH 79
EMILY to SUSANNA
BEDFORD Row, Nov. 2ist, 1851.
Now I'll tell you our greatest doing since I wrote last. Sunday evening we spent with Kossuth up at Brompton.1 There was almost no one there but " the clan " 2 — old Mrs. Ashurst, her four married children, a Mr. Masson, secretary to the " Friends of Italy," 3 and a couple of Italians making up the whole. Mazzini of course.
He did not bring Kossuth, but made the engagement and introduced him when he did come. Not much of an introduction, though. He just met him at the drawing- room door with Mrs. Stansfeld, pointed round the room, and said — " Void tout ce que faime le mieux en Anglcterre — voila tout " — and disappeared. Just two or three were named to Kossuth — by-the-bye he had known Mr. Stansfeld in a business way before — and then he came and sat down on a sofa by the fire and began to talk like all foreigners about English comfort and the smallness of our houses — two and three windows where there would be twelve and twenty in Pesth, and so on in proportion ; and we on the opposite side of the fire tried to keep up a little running fire of talk among ourselves so as not to do nothing but sit and stare at him. But soon Mazzini came back and seated himself in his favourite place — the hassock by the mantelpiece — and began to talk politics with him.
1 The James Stansf elds'.
2 The "Clan" were a set of W. Shaen's most intimate friends, of whom Mazzini was the centre and guide. They met once a week, alter- nately, at each other's houses — Mr. and Mrs. James Stansfeld, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Ashurst, Mr. and Mrs. Hawkos (afterwards Madame Venturi), Mr. and Mrs. Frank Dillon, &c. Mazzini, with his fellow Triumvir at the siege of Rome — Saffi — and the Generals Quadrio and Medici, with some others, were also at this time frequent Italian visitors.
3 The English Association for aiding the Italians to gain their freedom and nationality, so far as they could aid that cause by legal means ; subscribing funds, working on public opinion by writing ; trying to bring influence to bear on our Government, members of Parliament, &c.
80 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
And then we all by degrees drew close and listened. His voice was so low, except now and then in an anecdote when he grew eager and threw out his arm, that one could not always hear what he said. The first thing I recollect hearing him tell was about the flight of the Archduke Stephen. He was saying how often, in those months of 1848, it had seemed as if the whole future of Hungary had been changed by the least trifle. It was during the time when he was out of the ministry (I think he said) one night in Pesth,1 about 2 or 3 o'clock A.M., as he was sitting writing, for he had still an immense quantity to do, a soldier of the National Guard came in to speak to him. He said his regiment was stationed in Buda, and he could not help noticing that there were a great many travelling carriages on that night in the fortress, and that all the bustle there had been about reviewing the troops the last day or two might very well mask a bustle inside. Kossuth said: "I see what you mean; perhaps the [Archduke] Palatine is running away. But what can I do ? I have now no power at all." He reflected a moment, and then determined, on his own private responsibility, without any authority whatever, to write off to M. Hajnik (now here in England with him), the then Minister of Police, ordering him instantly to cross the river with his force, and stop the Palatine if he were making off, at least till the next morning. He also told M. Hajnik if he objected to do this, to send him word back at once, and he would think of something else. Then he told his servant to take the note, see if there was any answer, and if there were to bring it to him directly, and wake him up even if he should be gone to sleep. The man went. Kossuth was tired, went to bed, and fell asleep. About seven he woke, called his servant, and said, " Then it was all right, there was no answer." The man replied : " Please, sir, when I got to M. Hajnik's the house was all shut up ; there was not a light in any of the windows, and I knew that
1 It will be remembered that Buda is the west side of the river, Pesth on the opposite.
1850-1] MEETING KOSSUTH IN LONDON 81
Madame Hajnik had been very poorly indeed for some time, and I thought it would give her such a fright for her husband to be woke up suddenly, and he had been poorly too, and I thought I would take him the note the very first thing this morning, as soon as he could possibly be awake."
The Palatine had got away about an hour before ! And Kossuth said that if the note had been delivered, there was no doubt that Hajnik would have stopped him, and he would then have been forced, as he was already half disposed to do, to take the lead of the Hungarian nation, and it would never have come to a war with Austria, and Hungary would have been erected into an independent kingdom under his crown. Mazzini said, " Safer as it is, probably." — " Yes," Kossuth said, " I believe so now, but I did not then."
. . . Then Kossuth went on about Russian diplomacy, which he says is the most skilful — the deepest, most patient, most consistent, and most successful — of any in Europe. "They are in no hurry, but they keep to one object, too far forward for any one else to see it, and this they follow without a moment's relaxing. In Turkey, when they like a minister, when he is favourable to them, they keep up constantly a strong opposition to him, talk against him, and make a great noise. And then the English are sure to take him up, make a great fuss with him, and do everything to keep him in power. Russia makes fools of all others. So also there is the great road through Erze- roum " (I forget where, but I fancy on from Constantinople, south of the Black Sea, into Circassia) " which the Russians want so much to have made, because it will be just con- venient for their troops. They have always talked so much against it at Constantinople, said it would increase the English power, be another route for them to India, and so on, that the English thought it was quite anti-Russian and took it up, and have made the Sultan make a great piece of it. But I think I have done something to stop that."
82 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
CATHERINE to EMMA SHAEN
ALDERLEY EDGE, Nov. 22nd, 1851.
During Mamma's absence Selina and I have been keeping house, and the chief features of our reign have been that we have had Eliza Paterson to stay with us, and that we three damsels made up our minds to hear Kossuth, and carried it out, in spite of many warnings that we should certainly be crushed to death. Now don't you envy us ? And have you seen Kossuth's speeches in our Free Trade Hall, and next day at the Henrys' ? because if so, you will think it worth while to have been at the hall that night.
Kossuth is much shorter and more thick-set and military-looking than I had imagined. I had fancied him a more poetical and scliwarmeriscli personage, but he is not that a bit ; his face is very pale and deeply marked, very firm and still, with an abstracted look occasionally when silent, but a bright, clear glance, and very mobile features when he speaks, though the quantity of beard and moustaches rather obscures them. His English is wonderfully fluent, though somewhat foreign in construc- tion, and very foreign in accent ; now and then he pauses for a word, is silent for some seconds, but he never seems in the slightest degree embarrassed, nor loses for a moment the thread of his argument. His voice was not loud enough to reach to the farther end of the hall, and I was so sorry to think of all that the non-reserveds were miss- ing, especially when some of them had been almost squeezed to death in getting in ; positively the crush there was so great that two of Papa's warpers actually fainted ! (Perhaps you don't know that warpers are strong men.) I thoroughly liked all that Kossuth said, and still more his speech at Mr. Henry's next morning and his speech at Birmingham. It is a great satisfaction to know why and how far he is a republican, and to see that he has no stupid French ideas about equality, and one form of government being good for all the world.
1850-1] MAZZINI ON COMMUNISM 83
Emily sends word that she has had the " clan " to see her for the first time ; Mazzini got into a long talk, chiefly with Mr. Stansfeld, that was most interesting. I think I must copy that bit for you, as you worship Mazzini.
" [It was] about property and communism, and how man had no abstract rights, as the Americans put it, only duties, and the right to perform those duties ; and ' liberty, fraternity, and equality ' is a false cry as commonly under- stood, and a bad one anyhow ; and man's life is a task — the task to transform what is around and in him into something higher. Then you see came morals, politics, art, religion : all man's activity being in truth a trans- forming ; and the things produced the sign of his activity ; and property the outward sign of the transforming power he has exerted for use, as art is for beauty in the external world, and therefore as sacred in its origin as any of them. 'Yes, but,' Mr. Stansfeld said (he was arguing for com- munism as ideally possible), ' why might not all property be vested in Society ? ' ' Because that was nonsense,' Mazzini said. ' Society .abstractedly was nothing: Society really was a collection of individuals ; individuals did the work, therefore individuals got the property ; they might give it away if they liked, but the right to it was in them- selves.' And so the discussion went on for two hours as interesting as possible, Mazzini getting quite eager and pettish, as he is with people he is fond of; telling Mr. Stansfeld he was crotchetty, morbid, &c."
EMILY to CATHERINE
BEDFORD Row, Deer, iqth, 1851.
Oh dear ! I wish I could keep a journal ; things pass away so fast. I wanted to tell you all about the night when little Louis Blanc came to us for the first time. The little Frenchman really did talk splendidly. Not the highest style of talk, because not varied enough, but a perpetual flow — on all subjects great and little — of the
84 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1850-1
most perfect, rounded, beautiful sentences — clear, apposite, systematic, logical; thoroughly French in the only good sense of the term. And it was all about politics almost ; — the evils and absurdities of universal suffrage, which I never heard any one put so cleverly before ; character and advantages of different forms of government ; actual state of things in France ; he will be glad if they have as much liberty there a hundred years hence as we in England have now. About the President's policy ; and how he had fore- told a coup d'ttat, only not that it was taking place that very night.
CHAPTER V
1852-1854
CATHERINE passed a more cheerful winter at Alderley than she had done the previous year. Her health had greatly improved, and she was now able not only to pursue her studies and literary work, as she had done for some time, but also to join in the visiting and amusements that offered, going with the others to balls and concerts, &c. In December 1851 I went for my first visit to Emily in her new home, where I remained till the end of January, accompanying her and her husband to Crix for Christmas, and after- wards seeing a good deal of the Bunsens and making acquaintance with Emily's new friends, of whom the most interesting to me were Mazzini with his Italian and Hungarian companions.
The first edition of Niebuhr's "Life" sold out rapidly, and I was soon requested by the publisher to prepare a second edition, which was to come out in the autumn, with the addition of another volume, containing those of Niebuhr's minor writings, which might be likely to prove interesting to English readers. As this involved very hard work to be ready in time, Catherine again gave up various visits to which she was invited, in order to assist me. A very pleasant and refreshing holiday, however, was in store for her at the end of this period, for she was invited by the Gaskells to stay with them at Silverdale in July, whence she took a delightful little tour with Stephen
85
86 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1852-4
to the Lakes, and, on her return, accompanied the Gaskells on another few days' tour in Yorkshire, seeing Bolton Abbey and the neighbouring scenery.
In the autumn I spent several delightful weeks with the Bunsens — my first long visit there. The quiet season of the year was favourable to my seeing more of the family themselves than I could have done in the bustle of the London season, and I have a vivid remembrance of the charming long evenings, when Bunsen would read aloud or talk, or his sons delight us with their singing. During the day, how- ever, I was by no means idle, for the Chevalier gave me plenty to do in correcting for the press, looking up extracts, &c. From their house I witnessed the gorgeous state funeral of the Duke of Wellington on November i8th.
SUSANNA to CATHERINE
8 BEDFORD Row, Sunday, i2th January, 1852. On Friday a few people were here, including Mazzini, Saffi, and Louis Blanc, and it was an extremely agreeable evening. I had a little spirt of very animated half-joking quarrel with Mazzini ; he drinking to " The Republic," I qualifying it with the word " Italian " ; he averring that if true at all, it was the ideal for the whole world ; I sceptical. Louis Blanc was playing at chess then ; he had, however, come in just after luncheon to excuse himself for having to attend a Socialist soirde first at Mr. Conyngham's ; Will was out, and he sat nearly an hour talking to Emily and me upon all sorts of interesting topics; — his former acquaintance with Louis Napoleon, whom he visited when confined in Ham. He says he has no doubt his arriere- pensee is a war with England ; that though there are very strong reasons to come to this conclusion, to be drawn from his policy and whole position, yet these alone would
1852-4] MAZZINI AND EMILY'S SOUL 87
not make him so certain, but for his personal knowledge of the man ; — that he is possessed by one idea — that of being the " continuator " of his uncle, and filling up the work he left undone, which, as we all know, was the annihilation of English supremacy. To our remarks on the folly and rashness of such an enterprise, he replied, that such considerations might deter him if he were a calculating man, but he was hare-brained, audacious, and foolish enough for any attempt, and was perfectly inspired with the belief in his own destiny.
Mazzini dined here all alone one day and was very brilliant. He and Emily had a great dispute about the highest motives in life, he standing up for morals, and she justifying " art for it's own sake," on which he got so eager that he forgot his dinner, and when pressed by Will to eat, replied : " No, I have something else to do ; here is Mrs. Shaen travelling to perdition as fast as she can, and I must save her soul."
The same to the same
DUNDAS PLACE, MANCHESTER, March i6tht 1852.
Mr. Marbineau gave a most beautiful lecture on " The Christian View of Human Nature " last night, one of the series now going on at Cross Street Chapel [on the Unitarian view of leading religious questions], and after- wards Ste, Alice, and I drank tea with him at the Taylers'. Mr. T. began to ask him about the German philosophers. He gives a bad account of them, says they are now nearly all Pantheists, which is almost equivalent to believing in nothing. That in nearly all English writings, however wrong-headed or sceptical, there was a belief in the exist- ence of such a thing as truth, and the possibility of at bain- ing to it, but this was absent from many of the Germans. Mr. Taylor, who evidently, like me, is in ignorance of the writings in question, asked whether Pantheism exceeded the possibility of a man's being religious, and where exactly the boundaries of Pantheism lay, and Mr. M. said : " J
88 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS '[1852-4
think a man cannot be religious unless lie believes in God as a Being, not a mere Law " ; and then we were inter- rupted. But, however, in a pause of the general conver- sation, I asked him : " Did he call Theodore Parker a Pantheist?" and he replied: "He most strenuously de- clares he is not, and wrote me a long letter, very much hurt, to explain his views, because I had called him so. The fact is, he is not a consistent thinker ; I keep to my opinion that some of his notions properly carried out would involve Pantheism, but then he holds other views quite in- consistent with it." Then he told me how Theodore Parker is writing a book on " The Religions of the Caucasian Race/' and how he [Parker] is so much struck and shocked at the spread of infidelity in France and Germany, that he wrote to him lately (he seems in constant correspondence with Mr. M.) that he meant to go over the whole of the early part of his work again which is already written — treating of the positive foundation-facts of Christianity — to make it more full and pointed. Then Mr. Tayler said Mr. Leisler had just been telling him about a very interesting book, the Life of Perthes, the " Murray " of Germany ; so I could tell him a little about that, and as I was speaking of Perthes' friendship with Jacobi, and also of his peculiar religious views in later life — when, taking his Richtung from Claudius, he became pietistic and catholicizing — said of course then he did not agree fully with Jacobi; Mr. Martineau eagerly asked further explanation about Jacobi, and then went on to say how much he admired Jacobi, and how he was not properly appreciated in Germany, &c.
Next morning came a letter and packet from the dear old Chevalier, sending me a better edition of the Deutsche Theoloyie than I could get through booksellers, and such a nice note !
EMILY to CATHERINE
BEDFORD Row, July, 1852.
Monday Mazzini came to dinner. He looked even more oppressed than usual ; and I could not help fearing
1852-1] MAZZINI ON CHRISTIANITY 89
it meant that things were drawing nearer in Italy. It may be best, and best that it should be soon, but it makes one shudder to think of all that it must bring. And he feels that this must be a crowning struggle ; — and if it fails — could he live after it ? After dinner he began quarrelling with me about Christianity, which he maintains — rank Puseyism as we tell him — to be what, and no more than what, was believed in the first three, or may be the first five centuries. All that is new since then (even Purgatory, in which he believes) he calls " philosophizing upon Christianity," and won't allow Unitarians the name of Christians. He says it is absurd to give the name of a religion to all that can possibly be drawn out of it, or reconciled with it ; that except so far as we believe the distinctive original doctrines, we might as well call our- selves also Platonists and Buddhists and Mosaists, for we have undoubtedly received a great deal of what we are and believe from all those sources, and more too. Out of this of course many questions grew ; — for instance, what is and makes Christianity, and what is the right method of answering the question. Of course I think one quite right way is : Take Christendom these eighteen hundred years — what is new in it ? — and of what is new, what can not be traced to other sources than Christianity ? If one only could do it ! But Mr. Martineau can. It all came out of Mazz.'s asking about the " Christian Socialists " — some of whom have just taken up two new periodicals by Louis Blanc — and saying it was a mistake to call the social principle Christian ; it belonged to all religions in their outset ; all taught that men should live for others ; the distinctively Christian principle was — the individual relation of each man with God ; his independence of human media- tors ; that every man had to, and could, work out his own salvation on the conditions prescribed. The social side of Christianity belonged to it as a religion, not as Christianity ; that side it had in common with all other religions ; the essence of re-ligion being somethiug beyond man, which bound men together, &c. &c. When he was gone, Will
90 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1852-4
went too to the " Friends of Italy," and Sleeky and I set the windows open and talked till past eleven about Susy and Ste and you, and everybody. And the next evening, because it was the last, she sang and played to us the whole time, and it was like old days turned young again.
CATHERINE to EMILY
THE LAUND FARMHOUSE, BOLTON BRIDGE, August yd, 1852.
We started on Wednesday morning from Silverdale in the Gaskells' pony chaise to Borwick Hall, a very fine old mansion near Wharton, where sketches were to be made. . . . Next it was decided that Mr. Gaskell should drive all the party but me and Marianne to Clapham, a village under Ingleborough ; we two were to go by train. So when we had seen them off, we sauntered about the grounds of Hornby Castle — an old castle modernized — and into the church to hear the organ playing, and out again to look at the house where Dr. Lingard, the historian, lived for so many years, and wondered how anybody ever lived in such a sleepy dull place, and then it was time to go. When we stopped at Clapham Station it was getting dark, and we found we were a Yorkshire mile from the village, and Yorkshire miles are inconceivably long. But it was a beautiful walk, over wild undulating misty moorland, with Ingleborough right before us, and near it some hills more craggy and wooded than the rest, among which was Clapham. We enjoyed it very much, and also the fun of finding the inn and ordering the rooms, suppers, &c., for the whole party, the rest not having arrived. Such a nice old inn it was, and one of the rooms furnished with grand carved oak furniture, for which a great deal of money has been offered, but the people are proud of it, and won't sell it. The rest of our people did not arrive till late, but when they did, their cool moonlight drive over the moors had put them in high spirits, and we were all very jolly over our magnificent tea. The next day was very fine, but happily not quite so hot. Altogether our excursion has
1852-4] ITALIAN INSURRECTION 91
been very successful, and the weather charming, and every- body very happy.
EMILY to CATHERINE
BEDFORD Row, Nov. yd, 1852.
Oh dear, I wish I had six thousands pounds ! That is exactly what Mazzini wants and that would be enough. I never before heard him talk of what is going to happen in Italy without its putting me into bad spirits, and this time it made me feel quite exulting ; — terrified too though. But the quantity they have already done is marvellous, and then of course now things are drawing on, they are wanting all the money raised in Italy (which has always been his chief source of funds, and that I didn't know before) for immediate use in the country itself — buying muskets, &c. — so that just now, when he wants more than usual at this end also, he can't get it. How little is my intercourse worth for anything, when of all the rich people I know — not many to be sure — there is not one whom I could dream of persuading to give me £50. It's singular; do you know Mazz. is the only leader who gets any regular income from his country for political purposes. Even the French don't, still less Kossuth ; they all call him " the Banker of the Confederation." That doesn't look as if Italy was so very unpractical, does it ?
CATHERINE to EMILY
ALDERLET, November 1852.
By the way, when you write next, tell me what rooms are the nurseries, and how your dining-room is furnished. I do want to read Gorgey's book, but just now we are quite occupied with Mudie's box, though we are also reading " Hungary in 1851." We have all been full of " Queechy." Have you read it ? Fleda is one of the most beautiful characters I ever saw in a book. Papa says she is like our own Mamma.
I hope you are going to have the little creaturo
92 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1852-4
baptized ? I wonder whether you would think it super- stitious to wish for it as much as I know I should if I had a child. But it seems to me such a right and beautiful and appropriate thing, whether the apostles did it or not, to consecrate the little creature to God as soon as He has given it, and mark it with the sign of the faith in which it is to be brought up. Though I think it would be very un~ Christian to believe that the absence of a ceremony would prevent its being a Christian hereafter. But there would be difficulties perhaps as to where it should be christened. I should carry it to Mr. Maurice if he would do it, believ- ing that the blessing and prayer of a righteous man like him availeth much ; but of course it is different for you, and still more for Will.
Tell me when you write anything you may about Mazzini and the struggle.
EMILY to CATHERINE
It was half-past nine before we had an opportunity to talk over what had been in our minds since last Monday, namely, what we could do for Mazzini. Will didn't approve of our selling anything — best clock, bits of jewellery, &c. — which I had thought of as a better thing than money. Because you can say : " I will do without such and such an article of luxury," but we can't say : " I will not want this five guineas for living expenses within the next twelvemonth." HoAvever, Will decided it would not be right at present for us to give anything, and I agreed, though disappointed.
Will thought of channels for getting at one or two rich men. But you see those bad peace principles are corrupting so many of the Liberals — at least those con- nected with trade. Will is a great deal less hopeful than Mazzini, or than I had always supposed him to be. He says that in 1848 he was hopeful, and thought it worth giving all he had to give. But now the despotic govern- ments are all better organized and leagued together ; the
1852-4] AT THE GASKELLS1 93
armies in better training ; and also we know now that they do not mind resorting to more cruel and reckless modes of warfare than had ever before been thought possible. And as to the little we could give, it would be of more use then to keep men from starving, than now to help on the revolution.
[As to Baby], certainly she will not be christened in London at present. However much I might like Mr. Maurice to pray with us for her, I could not have him go through the Church Service over her. It seems to me shocking to come before God with words which one does not mean, and I could not mean all those. It is one thing to thank God for a child and consecrate it to Him; it is another to baptize it into the Church of England.
CATHERINE to EMILY
EEV. W. GASKELL'S, PLYMOUTH GROVE, Nov. 22nd, 1852.
Mr. Gaskell is doing a great deal now, and is gaining many warm friends in Manchester, particularly among the Church clergymen, by his activity, good sense, and good temper in two Committees. One is for the better regula- tion of beerhouses and places of public amusement, the other a Sanitary Committee to prepare the town for the next visit of the cholera. Both the Dean and Canon Richson are saying everywhere that he is the most valuable member on these Committees, and he was invited the other day to the distribution of medical prizes, which is always done by the Bishop or Dean, and to which no Dissenting minister was ever asked before. He clearly feels that he has found his right place, and Lily is proud that he is appreciated by people whose appreciation she cares for.
In the intervals of my other work I began to
translate the Deutsche Theologie this autumn, but it was not published till the following year.
The study of this gem of the German Mystics of
94 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1852-4
the fourteenth century, followed up as it was by the study of the early records of Christianity contained in Bunsen's " Hippolytus and His Age," and then, in my own case, by proceeding to the study of Tauler and the other writers of the School to which he belonged, formed an important epoch both to Catherine and myself in our mental development. It led her to clearer, and myself gradually to wider and juster views of Christianity than we had hitherto possessed ; and whatever influence these writings exercised upon us, was deepened and strengthened by the acquaintance which we began about this time to make with Mr. Maurice's writings, through his "Theological Essays" and " Kingdom of Christ," and, before long, with himself personally.
A few lines may be inserted from a letter of Bunsen's in reply to my sending him the results of my researches into the various editions of Deutsche Tlieologie, including a transcript of the original in Old-German. " Accept my heartfelt thanks for your work of love anent the Deutsche Theologie. You have given me great pleasure by it. Only, dear friend, go forward on this path, and a greater light will arise for you upon Christ and Christianity than is contained in any English formularies whatever. You ought also to read Tauler (his Life and Sermons), which I will send you."
The earlier part of 1853 was on the whole less eventful for Catherine than the two or three preceding years. She continued her literary occupation for some two or three hours of each day, and finished her translation of the first volume of Perthes' Leben early in the year. But that, alas ! like our previous transla- tion of Madame Pfeiffer's "Travels," was doomed to
1852-4] SOCIETY AT THE BUNSENS1 95
prove wasted time, for before the second volume was far advanced, there appeared an announcement of another translation "with the Author's sanction."
My work with translation, my district and the Lower Mosley-Street Schools was interrupted in March by a very delightful visit to Mr. Wrn. Greg, then living at Windermere with his sister, Miss Sarah Greg, and a still more delightful visit to the Bunsens in May and June, memorable to me not only for my pleasant intercourse and growing intimacy with Chevalier Bunsen and his family, but as the commencement of my friendship with Mr. Maurice, Archdeacon Hare, Dr. Max Miiller, &c., and the opportunity of meeting a great number of interesting people, literary, learned, artistic, such as Neukomm, Dr. Pauli, the historian of Alfred the Great, &c. ; Pastor Wichern, the founder of the Rauhe Haus in Hamburg ; Mr. and Mrs. Glad- stone, Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton), Miss W. W. Wynne, and many other notable people. Amidst all this brightness in England and our own circle, however, we were saddened by the failure of the Milan insurrection in February, which we had followed with passionate interest. While staying with Mr. Greg I first made acquaintance with the Rev. Robert Perceval Graves (author of the " Life of Sir William Hamilton," &c., and brother-in-law of Pro- fessor Ranke of Berlin), afterwards a very dear and intimate friend. Shortly after this date, ill-health compelled him to resign his living of Bowness, after which he resided for some years at Dove's Nest, formerly the dwelling of Mrs. Hemans, where I had the privilege of visiting him and his excellent wife, and owed much to his wise help in intellectual diffi- culties, as well as to their constant kindness.
96 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1852-4
In April Catherine paid a visit to Emily while I was at the Bunsens*, and it must have been during this visit to London that Catherine was introduced to Bunsen. I had mentioned to him her translation of Perthes' Leben, and consulted him about Arndt's Leben and other books, in consequence of which he asked me to bring her to Caiiton Terrace to talk the matter over with him. This must have been about the time, too, when Catherine was first introduced to the German Hymns, as well as to Tauler and the Deutsche Theologie, all of which interested her extremely, though the idea of her translating the Lyra Ger- manica was not conceived till the following year.
In August Catherine went to Switzerland with our father; she returned all the stronger for this tour, and was able this autumn to begin active work among the poor in the newly-established Sunday School and District Visiting Society.
As soon as the Vicar was settled at our new church, the district belonging to it was divided among the ladies of his congregation to visit. A scattered district of about forty houses lying at some distance from us and each other was undertaken by Catherine and Alice. They visited separately, calling at each house once a week to receive subscriptions to a Provident Club, and took with them books and papers of their own, which they lent to the people. Among these the Illustrated London News was specially prized by the men, who were very glad when they got the chance of a talk with Catherine about the public events mentioned in it. One man, a weaver, and therefore always at home when her call was paid, said, speaking of her one day: " Well, I have always wondered what ladies was made for; I thought them such useless
1852-4] DISTRICT VISITING 97
beings; but at least now I've found out they're the best of good company. Why, you could not find a single thing in the paper that she did not know all about it ! I'd liefer hear her talk even than go to the public-house ! "
The inhabitants of a country district do not change often like those of a town, and many real and lasting friendships were formed between Catherine and those whom she visited. Her insight into character and wonderful powers of sympathy were among the most striking of her characteristics ; perhaps not less so were her remarkably strong sense and sound judgment in all practical matters. Hence people, both in her own and other classes, often felt impelled to open their whole hearts to her for counsel or help on a very brief acquaintance, feeling assured at least of comprehension and sympathy in the difficulties, mental or material, of their position, and with strong hope of effectual guidance. Were there space, we could give many instances of her tact in dealing with the poor, and of the extreme affection with which she was regarded by them. One poor woman, the wife of a labourer, whose lungs were affected, and who had from time to time attacks of severe illness, had twice had her life saved by Catherine's happening to come in ; once when she was bleeding to death after leeches had been applied, another time when she was just sinking away from exhaustion. In both cases she was alone in her cottage, and would have soon died had not Catherine with her presence of mind and knowledge of illness promptly done what was required at the moment, and only left her when she had found fiome one to tend her ; after this she used to say : "I'm not so much frightened now at being left alone
G
98 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1852-4
when I'm ill, for I feel as if when it comes to the worst the Lord would send you to me as He has done twice already." In another case, she succeeded in persuading a couple to marry who had lived together till seven children were born, and were a very dirty, disorderly lot, but their improvement in all respects after they had thus acquired the first element of self- respect was most marked. At the Sunday School her influence over the children was very great, and all the more so that to her kindliness, knowledge, and good sense, she added a strong vein of humour, and could amuse the children as well as instruct them. Long after she left the neighbourhood, she used to receive occasional letters from her old clients, who never forgot her, and she never forgot them.
CHEVALIER BUNSEN to SUSANNA
CARLTON TERRACE, February yrd^ 1853.
[Translation}
I have read " Ruth " ; and Goethe's Brief wechsel mit Lotte und ihrem Manne (1772)* has arrived ; and now I must thank you for your dear letter, which has pleased me so much ; . . . but if you could only see what I have brought to pass in the time, you would forgive ine for not answering sooner. It has been a question of developing and bringing into the shape in which it floated before my eyes, a life- project that I have carried about in niy heart since 1850. I found that I was succeeding, and so the creative impulse urged me on to work out the first of four books of the Weltbevmsstsein, till now the little volume lies complete before me, all but the revision of two Chapters for the Notes ; and now at last I can allow myself a little pause.
So first let me tell you that I have read " Ruth " with
1 Goethe's " Correspondence with Lotte [the " Charlotte " of his " Werther"] and her Husband."
1852-4] BUNSEN TO SUSANNA 99
heartfelt sympathy and admiration. I admire the courage as much as the genius of the noble-minded authoress. She has looked the tragedy of life straight in the face. Ruth must needs perish, but atoned and glorified. That is re- quired by man's sense of the Eternal Laws of the World's- order. To any one who understands this, the last volume will be as valuable and as indispensable as the two former ones. It is Psyche in the purifying fires of ordinary life, whose kaleidoscopic play of light and shadow is rendered in the successive scenes with much grace, truth, and creative power. The inner side of Dissenting life is very cleverly pourtrayed. Pray express to your charming friend my thanks and admiration for this new production of hers.
Now, dear Child, to return to your letter. So you wish me for the future to write for the English and in English ? That is very kind of you, because it implies your faith in me and in my success among your great nation, and both are worth much to me. But if you reflect further, you will see that "jeder Vogel dock nur singen Jcann, wie ihm der Schnabel gewachsen ist," or to employ a more dignified quota- tion, " the Spirit bloweth where it listeth. " The idea of " Hippolytus " 1 was conceived in an interchange of thoughts with Hare, was developed at Oxford amidst English thinkers, who addressed me in English and therefore to whom I had to reply in English. And so he naturally came into the world in English. When I came to the third part the spell ceased, for there was no longer any English mind in intercourse with mine there, and so I composed it in German. Then out of despair over Cottrell's translation, and because the fancy took me — in Latin. But the books that are the work of my life, and meant to live, have all been conceived in German, and therefore must be brought forth in German by all the laws of Mind.
I feel indeed that here in England I have a lever, which is
1 "Hippolytus and His Age; or, the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome under Commodus and Alexander Severus " ; and "Ancient and Modern Christianity and Divinity Compared," by C. C. J. Bunsen, 4 vols. 8vo. Longmans, 1852.
100 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1852-4
wanting to me in Germany ; where I am, properly speaking, a foreigner to this generation. This lever I intend to avail myself of in the way that I believe will be most useful and most welcome to England and the English. But the trans- lation ? I have always purposed to entrust the translation of my " Consciousness of the Universe exhibited in the Progress of the History of Mankind " to my eldest, English, son. He is coming to us on the i5th, and then I shall read the work to my people in order. If Henry will undertake the translation, well and good ; if not — well, what else can be done, but that my Tochterlein should translate it for me. She would do it quite to my mind, and she would do it, would she not ?
The book will please you. It is the first national work with which I come before the world. It strikes the great keynote of human consciousness, and penetrates into the very heart of the Bible, of conscience, and of philosophy. I wish you could come and stay here from the 1 5 th of February to the i 5th of March, and be present at my readings. Cannot that be managed, my little Philoso- pheress ? (You shall never be called by such an ugly name again if you will come !) Who knows, but I may add a few special pages in your behoof, if there should be one or another question you want to see treated of !
CATHERINE to ELIZA PATERSON
ALDERLEY, Feby. gth, 1853.
I am so glad that you too like " IfclJkhJ' properly, and cried over it. I should have given you up as hard-hearted to the last degree if you hadn't. Are not Ruth and Sally and the Bensons beautiful characters? Mr. Bradshaw and Mr. Bellingham are quite as well drawn, though not so agreeable. Mr. Farquhar is generally a favourite with people who rather disapprove the book as a whole, and / don't like him a bit. What do you mean by
saying that " rather takes Mr. Bellingham's part " ?
I can't conceive what there can be to say in extenua-
1852-4] MRS. GASKELKS "RUTH" 101
tion of his conduct, and indeed one of Mrs. Gaskell's objects was to make her readers feel how much worse he was in every way than Ruth, although the world visited her conduct with so much heavier a penalty than his. She also wished to bring out how, though the world did not punish Mr. Bellingham, God did, by the entire deterioration of his whole nature, and in this, I think, she has beautifully succeeded. How infinitely below Ruth he is in every way when they meet again; and how well she shows what an intrinsically inferior nature his is, because it becomes coarser as you see deeper into it, while the outside is refined. One thing I admire very much is the reticence, the quiet, even tone of the whole work, the absence of anything like ex- aggeration. In that point, I think it very superior to " Mary Barton." The only exception is that speech of Jemima's where she bears witness to Ruth, and there I believe a passionate girl like her might have spoken so, and that I shrink from it, not because it is unnatural, but because / should in real life shrink from any such wild expressions of feeling. I thoroughly like Sally.
Papa has just finished it, and says, " Tell Mrs. Gaskell that she is a brave, good woman for writing that book, and I honour her from the bottom of my heart. There's more real Christianity in it, than in whole volumes of orthodox theology."
CATHERINE to EMILY
ALDERLEY, March \6th, 1853.
Lately we have seen a good deal of Mrs. Heugh, and so far I take to her more than any of the younger people about here. She puts me in mind of one of Miss Edge- worth's heroines ; one of her pattern ones, I mean ; fair and sweet-looking, with gentle, lady-like ways, and a soft, rather slow, yet not languid, way of speaking, very unlike Man- chester people in general ; often saying very sensible things with something a little old-fashioned or bookish in her mode of expression, and evidently brought up in the strictest proprieties of every kind. On Monday we had a very long
102 MEMORIALS OF TWO SISTERS [1852-4
talk, for I went down to read Italian with her, and when the lesson was over, it was raining so hard that I had to wait more than an hour. So she told me how till she married she had lived all her life in Cornwall, near Plymouth, at an old family house, where then her brother lived. How her sister-in-law was very kind to her, and they rode a great deal and had many relatives near there, and it was a very merry life. And then the change of coming to Manchester and living in Upper Brook Street. She had never seen a manufacturing town, and though of course she knew it would be smoky, had never conceived anything like how noisy and smoky, and grimy ! And the bustle and drive of Manchester life bewildered her, and the mixed stateliness and roughness of the society disgusted her, and above all, everything was so ugly, it was a constant oppression to her.
CATHERINE to EMMA SHAEN
ALDERLEY, March 2$rd, 1853.
I made up my mind not to write to you again till I had read " Villette," and now I have just finished it, and don't wonder at all you say about it. It is a thorough enjoyment to read it, so powerful everywhere, no rant, as there were bits of in her other books, so deep and true in its appreciation of character. ... I like him [Graham Bretton] so much, though he didn't appreciate Lucy Snowe. To be sure she scarcely gave