The Common Reader
article with a handbook . . . our bodies, of course, giggling and
looking at nothing. Still worse, not one soul of the higher class
visible: in fact I never heard of any one of them knowing of the place,
and for this we are spending millions—it is all too painful.
It was all too painful, and the guillotine, she felt, loomed ahead. That
catastrophe she was spared, for who could wish to cut off the head of a
pigeon with a whistle attached to its tail? But if the whole bird-cage
had been overturned and the aerial orchestra sent screaming and
fluttering through the air, we can be sure, as Mr. Joseph Chamberlain
told her, that her conduct would have been “a credit to the British
aristocracy”.
IV
ARCHBISHOP THOMSON
The origin of Archbishop Thomson was obscure. His great-uncle “may
reasonably be supposed” to have been “an ornament to the middle
classes”. His aunt married a gentleman who was present at the murder of
Gustavus III. of Sweden; and his father met his death at the age of
eighty-seven by treading on a cat in the early hours of the morning. The
physical vigour which this anecdote implies was combined in the
Archbishop with powers of intellect which promised success in whatever
profession he adopted. At Oxford it seemed likely that he would devote
himself to philosophy or science. While reading for his degree he found
time to write the _Outlines of the Laws of Thought_, which “immediately
became a recognised text-book for Oxford classes”. But though poetry,
philosophy, medicine, and the law held out their temptations he put such
thoughts aside, or never entertained them, having made up his mind from
the first to dedicate himself to Divine service. The measure of his
success in the more exalted sphere is attested by the following facts:
Ordained deacon in 1842 at the age of twenty-three, he became Dean and
Bursar of Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1845; Provost in 1855, Bishop of
Gloucester and Bristol in 1861, and Archbishop of York in 1862. Thus at
the early age of forty-three he stood next in rank to the Archbishop of
Canterbury himself; and it was commonly though erroneously expected that
he would in the end attain to that dignity also.
It is a matter of temperament and belief whether you read this list with
respect or with boredom; whether you look upon an archbishop’s hat as a
crown or as an extinguisher. If, like the present reviewer, you are
ready to hold the simple faith that the outer order corresponds to the
inner—that a vicar is a good man, a canon a better man, and an
archbishop the best man of all—you will find the study of the
Archbishop’s life one of extreme fascination. He has turned aside from
poetry and philosophy and law, and specialised in virtue. He has
dedicated himself to the service of the Divine. His spiritual
proficiency has been such that he has developed from deacon to dean,
from dean to bishop, and from bishop to archbishop in the short space of
twenty years. As there are only two archbishops in the whole of England
the inference seems to be that he is the second best man in England; his
hat is the proof of it. Even in a material sense his hat was one of the
largest; it was larger than Mr. Gladstone’s; larger than Thackeray’s;
larger than Dickens’; it was in fact, so his hatter told him and we are
inclined to agree, an “eight full”. Yet he began much as other men
begin. He struck an undergraduate in a fit of temper and was rusticated;
he wrote a text-book of logic and rowed a very good oar. But after he
was ordained his diary shows that the specialising process had begun. He
thought a great deal about the state of his soul; about “the monstrous
tumour of Simony”; about Church reform; and about the meaning of
Christianity. “Self-renunciation,” he came to the conclusion, “is the
foundation of Christian Religion and Christian Morals. . . . The highest
wisdom is that which can enforce and cultivate this self-renunciation.
Hence (against Cousin) I hold that religion is higher far than
philosophy.” There is one mention of chemists and capillarity, but
science and philosophy were, even at this early stage, in danger of
being crowded out. Soon the diary takes a different tone. “He seems,”
says his biographer, “to have had no time for committing his thoughts to
paper”; he records his engagements only, and he dines out almost every
night. Sir Henry Taylor, whom he met at one of these parties, described
him as “simple, solid, good, capable, and pleasing”. Perhaps it was his
solidity combined with his “eminently scientific” turn of mind, his
blandness as well as his bulk, that impressed some of these great people
with the confidence that in him the Church had found a very necessary
champion. His “brawny logic” and massive frame seemed to fit him to
grapple with a task that taxed the strongest—how, that is, to reconcile
the scientific discoveries of the age with religion, and even prove them
“some of its strongest witnesses for the truth”. If any one could do
this Thomson could; his practical ability, unhampered by any mystical or
dreaming tendency, had already proved itself in the conduct of the
business affairs of his College. From Bishop he became almost instantly
Archbishop; and in becoming Archbishop he became Primate of England,
Governor of the Charterhouse and King’s College, London, patron of one
hundred and twenty livings, with the Archdeaconries of York, Cleveland,
and the East Riding in his gift, and the Canonries and Prebends in York
Minster. Bishopthorpe itself was an enormous palace; he was
immediately faced by the “knotty question” of whether to buy all the
furniture—“much of it only poor stuff”—or to furnish the house anew,
which would cost a fortune. Moreover there were seven cows in the park;
but these, perhaps, were counterbalanced by nine children in the
nursery. Then the Prince and Princess of Wales came to stay, and the
Archbishop took upon himself the task of furnishing the Princess’s
apartments. He went up to London and bought eight Moderator lamps, two
Spanish figures holding candles, and reminded himself of the necessity
of buying “soap for Princess”. But meanwhile far more serious matters
claimed every ounce of his strength. Already he had been exhorted to
“wield the sure lance of your brawny logic against the sophistries” of
the authors of _Essays and Reviews_, and had responded in a work called
_Aids to Faith_. Near at hand the town of Sheffield, with its large
population of imperfectly educated working men, was a breeding ground of
scepticism and discontent. The Archbishop made it his special charge. He
was fond of watching the rolling of armour plate, and constantly
addressed meetings of working men. “Now what are these Nihilisms, and
Socialisms, and Communisms, and Fenianisms, and Secret Societies—what
do they all mean?” he asked. “Selfishness,” he replied, and “assertion
of one class against the rest is at the bottom of them all.” There was a
law of nature, he said, by which wages went up and wages went down. “You
must accept the declivity as well as the ascent. . . . If we could only
get people to learn that, then things would go on a great deal better
and smoother.” And the working men of Sheffield responded by giving him
five hundred pieces of cutlery mounted in sterling silver. But
presumably there were a certain number of knives among the spoons and
the forks.
Bishop Colenso, however, was far more troublesome than the working men
of Sheffield; and the Ritualists vexed him so persistently that even his
vast strength felt the strain. The questions which were referred to him
for decision were peculiarly fitted to tease and annoy even a man of his
bulk and his blandness. Shall a drunkard found dead in a ditch, or a
burglar who has fallen through a skylight, be given the benefit of the
Burial Service? he was asked. The question of lighted candles was “most
difficult”; the wearing of coloured stoles and the administration of the
mixed chalice taxed him considerably; and finally there was the Rev.
John Purchas, who, dressed in cope, alb, biretta and stole “cross-wise”,
lit candles and extinguished them “for no special reason”; filled a
vessel with black powder and rubbed it into the foreheads of his
congregation; and hung over the Holy Table “a figure, image, or stuffed
skin of a dove, in a flying attitude”. The Archbishop’s temper, usually
so positive and imperturbable, was gravely ruffled. “Will there ever
come a time when it will be thought a crime to have striven to keep the
Church of England as representing the common sense of the Nation?” he
asked. “I suppose it may, but I shall not see it. I have gone through a
good deal, but I do not repent of having done my best.” If, for a
moment, the Archbishop himself could ask such a question, we must
confess to a state of complete bewilderment. What has become of our
superlatively good man? He is harassed and cumbered; spends his time
settling questions about stuffed pigeons and coloured petticoats; writes
over eighty letters before breakfast sometimes; scarcely has time to run
over to Paris and buy his daughter a bonnet; and in the end has to ask
himself whether one of these days his conduct will not be considered a
crime.
Was it a crime? And if so, was it his fault? Did he not start out in the
belief that Christianity had something to do with renunciation and was
not entirely a matter of common sense? If honours and obligations, pomps
and possessions, accumulated and encrusted him, how, being an
Archbishop, could he refuse to accept them? Princesses must have their
soap; palaces must have their furniture; children must have their cows.
And, pathetic though it seems, he never completely lost his interest in
science. He wore a pedometer; he was one of the first to use a camera;
he believed in the future of the typewriter; and in his last years he
tried to mend a broken clock. He was a delightful father too; he wrote
witty, terse, sensible letters; his good stories were much to the point;
and he died in harness. Certainly he was a very able man, but if we
insist upon goodness—is it easy, is it possible, for a good man to be
an Archbishop?
_The Patron and the Crocus_
Young men and women beginning to write are generally given the plausible
but utterly impracticable advice to write what they have to write as
shortly as possible, as clearly as possible, and without other thought
in their minds except to say exactly what is in them. Nobody ever adds
on these occasions the one thing needful: “And be sure you choose your
patron wisely”, though that is the gist of the whole matter. For a book
is always written for somebody to read, and, since the patron is not
merely the paymaster, but also in a very subtle and insidious way the
instigator and inspirer of what is written, it is of the utmost
importance that he should be a desirable man.
But who, then, is the desirable man—the patron who will cajole the best
out of the writer’s brain and bring to birth the most varied and
vigorous progeny of which he is capable? Different ages have answered
the question differently. The Elizabethans, to speak roughly,
chose the aristocracy to write for and the playhouse public. The
eighteenth-century patron was a combination of coffee-house wit and Grub
Street bookseller. In the nineteenth-century the great writers wrote for
the half-crown magazines and the leisured classes. And looking back and
applauding the splendid results of these different alliances, it all
seems enviably simple, and plain as a pikestaff compared with our own
predicament—for whom should we write? For the present supply of patrons
is of unexampled and bewildering variety. There is the daily Press, the
weekly Press, the monthly Press; the English public and the American