Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet by Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

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Lord Lynedale bade me very courteously sit down while he examined the
proofs. I looked round the low-wainscoted apartment, with its narrow
mullioned windows, in extreme curiosity. What a real nobleman's abode could
be like, was naturally worth examining, to one who had, all his life, heard
of the aristocracy as of some mythic Titans--whether fiends or gods, being
yet a doubtful point--altogether enshrined on "cloudy Olympus," invisible
to mortal ken. The shelves were gay with morocco, Russia leather, and
gilding--not much used, as I thought, till my eye caught one of the
gorgeously-bound volumes lying on the table in a loose cover of polished
leather--a refinement of which poor I should never have dreamt. The walls
were covered with prints, which soon turned my eyes from everything else,
to range delighted over Landseers, Turners, Roberts's Eastern sketches,
the ancient Italian masters; and I recognized, with a sort of friendly
affection, an old print of my favourite St. Sebastian, in the Dulwich
Gallery. It brought back to my mind a thousand dreams, and a thousand
sorrows. Would those dreams be ever realized? Might this new acquaintance
possibly open some pathway towards their fulfilment?--some vista towards
the attainment of a station where they would, at least, be less chimerical?
And at that thought, my heart beat loud with hope. The room was choked up
with chairs and tables, of all sorts of strange shapes and problematical
uses. The floor was strewed with skins of bear, deer, and seal. In a corner
lay hunting-whips, and fishing-rods, foils, boxing-gloves, and gun-cases;
while over the chimney-piece, an array of rich Turkish pipes, all amber and
enamel, contrasted curiously with quaint old swords and daggers--bronze
classic casts, upon Gothic oak brackets, and fantastic scraps of
continental carving. On the centre table, too, reigned the same rich
profusion, or if you will, confusion--MSS., "Notes in Egypt," "Goethe's
Walverwandschaften," Murray's Hand-books, and "Plato's Republic." What
was there not there? And I chuckled inwardly, to see how _Bell's Life in
London_ and the _Ecclesiologist_ had, between them, got down "McCulloch
on Taxation," and were sitting, arm-in-arm, triumphantly astride of him.
Everything in the room, even to the fragrant flowers in a German glass,
spoke of a travelled and cultivated luxury--manifold tastes and powers of
self-enjoyment and self-improvement, which, Heaven forgive me if I envied,
as I looked upon them. If I, now, had had one-twentieth part of those
books, prints, that experience of life, not to mention that physical
strength and beauty, which stood towering there before the fire--so simple;
so utterly unconscious of the innate nobleness and grace which shone out
from every motion of those stately limbs and features--all the delicacy
which blood can give, combined, as one does sometimes see, with the broad
strength of the proletarian--so different from poor me!--and so different,
too, as I recollected with perhaps a savage pleasure, from the miserable,
stunted specimens of over-bred imbecility whom I had often passed in
London! A strange question that of birth! and one in which the philosopher,
in spite of himself, must come to democratic conclusions. For, after
all, the physical and intellectual superiority of the high-born is only
preserved, as it was in the old Norman times, by the continual practical
abnegation of the very caste-lie on which they pride themselves--by
continual renovation of their race, by intermarriage with the ranks below
them. The blood of Odin flowed in the veins of Norman William; true--and so
did the tanner's of Falaise!

At last he looked up and spoke courteously--

"I'm afraid I have kept you long; but now, here is for your corrections,
which are capital. I have really to thank you for a lesson in writing
English." And he put a sovereign into my hand.

"I am very sorry," said I, "but I have no change."

"Never mind that. Your work is well worth the money."

"But," I said, "you agreed with me for five shillings a sheet, and--I do
not wish to be rude, but I cannot accept your kindness. We working men make
a rule of abiding by our wages, and taking nothing which looks like--"

"Well, well--and a very good rule it is. I suppose, then, I must find out
some way for you to earn more. Good afternoon." And he motioned me out
of the room, followed me down stairs, and turned off towards the College
Gardens.

I wandered up and down, feeding my greedy eyes, till I found myself again
upon the bridge where I had stood that morning, gazing with admiration
and astonishment at a scene which I have often expected to see painted or
described, and which, nevertheless, in spite of its unique magnificence,
seems strangely overlooked by those who cater for the public taste, with
pen and pencil. The vista of bridges, one after another spanning the
stream; the long line of great monastic palaces, all unlike, and yet all in
harmony, sloping down to the stream, with their trim lawns and ivied walls,
their towers and buttresses; and opposite them, the range of rich gardens
and noble timber-trees, dimly seen through which, at the end of the
gorgeous river avenue, towered the lofty buildings of St. John's. The whole
scene, under the glow of a rich May afternoon, seemed to me a fragment
out of the "Arabian Nights" or Spencer's "Fairy Queen." I leaned upon the
parapet, and gazed, and gazed, so absorbed in wonder and enjoyment, that I
was quite unconscious, for some time, that Lord Lynedale was standing by my
side, engaged in the same employment. He was not alone. Hanging on his arm
was a lady, whose face, it seemed to me, I ought to know. It certainly was
one not to be easily forgotten. She was beautiful, but with the face and
figure rather of a Juno than a Venus--dark, imperious, restless--the lips
almost too firmly set, the brow almost too massive and projecting--a queen,
rather to be feared than loved--but a queen still, as truly royal as the
man into whose face she was looking up with eager admiration and delight,
as he pointed out to her eloquently the several beauties of the landscape.
Her dress was as plain as that of any Quaker; but the grace of its
arrangement, of every line and fold, was enough, without the help of the
heavy gold bracelet on her wrist, to proclaim her a fine lady; by which
term, I wish to express the result of that perfect education in taste and
manner, down to every gesture, which Heaven forbid that I, professing to be
a poet, should undervalue. It is beautiful; and therefore I welcome it, in
the name of the Author of all beauty. I value it so highly, that I would
fain see it extend, not merely from Belgravia to the tradesman's villa,
but thence, as I believe it one day will, to the labourer's hovel, and the
needlewoman's garret.

Half in bashfulness, half in the pride which shrinks from anything like
intrusion, I was moving away; but the nobleman, recognising me with a smile
and a nod, made some observation on the beauty of the scene before us.
Before I could answer, however, I saw that his companion's eyes were fixed
intently on my face.

"Is this," she said to Lord Lynedale, "the young person of whom you were
speaking to me just now? I fancy that I recollect him, though, I dare say,
he has forgotten me."

If I had forgotten the face, that voice, so peculiarly rich, deep, and
marked in its pronunciation of every syllable, recalled her instantly to my
mind. It was the dark lady of the Dulwich Gallery!

"I met you, I think," I said, "at the picture gallery at Dulwich, and you
were kind enough, and--and some persons who were with you, to talk to me
about a picture there."

"Yes; Guido's St. Sebastian. You seemed fond of reading then. I am glad to
see you at college."

I explained that I was not at college. That led to fresh gentle questions
on her part, till I had given her all the leading points of my history.
There was nothing in it of which I ought to have been ashamed.

She seemed to become more and more interested in my story, and her
companion also.

"And have you tried to write? I recollect my uncle advising you to try a
poem on St. Sebastian. It was spoken, perhaps, in jest; but it will not, I
hope, have been labour lost, if you have taken it in earnest."

"Yes--I have written on that and on other subjects, during the last few
years."

"Then, you must let us see them, if you have them with you. I think my
uncle, Arthur, might like to look over them; and if they were fit for
publication, he might be able to do something towards it."

"At all events," said Lord Lynedale, "a self-educated author is always
interesting. Bring any of your poems, that you have with you, to the Eagle
this afternoon, and leave them there for Dean Winnstay; and to-morrow
morning, if you have nothing better to do, call there between ten and
eleven o'clock."

He wrote me down the dean's address, and nodding a civil good morning,
turned away with his queenly companion, while I stood gazing after him,
wondering whether all noblemen and high-born ladies were like them in
person and in spirit--a question which, in spite of many noble exceptions,
some of them well known and appreciated by the working men, I am afraid
must be answered in the negative.

I took my MSS. to the Eagle, and wandered out once more, instinctively,
among those same magnificent trees at the back of the colleges, to enjoy
the pleasing torment of expectation. "My uncle!" was he the same old man
whom I had seen at the gallery; and if so, was Lillian with him? Delicious
hope! And yet, what if she was with him--what to me? But yet I sat silent,
dreaming, all the evening, and hurried early to bed--not to sleep, but to
lie and dream on and on, and rise almost before light, eat no breakfast,
and pace up and down, waiting impatiently for the hour at which I was to
find out whether my dream, was true.

And it was true! The first object I saw, when I entered the room, was
Lillian, looking more beautiful than ever. The child of sixteen had
blossomed into the woman of twenty. The ivory and vermilion of the
complexion had toned down together into still richer hues. The dark hazel
eyes shone with a more liquid lustre. The figure had become more rounded,
without losing a line of that fairy lightness, with which her light
morning-dress, with its delicate French semi-tones of colour, gay and
yet not gaudy, seemed to harmonize. The little plump jewelled hands--the
transparent chestnut hair, banded round the beautiful oval masque--the tiny
feet, which, as Suckling has it,

Underneath her petticoat
Like little mice peeped in and out--

I could have fallen down, fool that I was! and worshipped--what? I could
not tell then, for I cannot tell even now.

The dean smiled recognition, bade me sit down, and disposed my papers,
meditatively, on his knee. I obeyed him, trembling, choking--my eyes
devouring my idol--forgetting why I had come--seeing nothing but
her--listening for nothing but the opening of these lips. I believe the
dean was some sentences deep in his oration, before I became conscious
thereof.

"--And I think I may tell you, at once, that I have been very much
surprised and gratified with them. They evince, on the whole, a far
greater acquaintance with the English classic-models, and with the laws of
rhyme and melody, than could have been expected from a young man of your
class--_macte virtute puer_. Have you read any Latin?"

"A little." And I went on staring at Lillian, who looked up, furtively,
from her work, every now and then, to steal a glance at me, and set my poor
heart thumping still more fiercely against my side.

"Very good; you will have the less trouble, then, in the preparation
for college. You will find out for yourself, of course, the immense
disadvantages of self-education. The fact is, my dear lord" (turning to
Lord Lynedale), "it is only useful as an indication of a capability of
being educated by others. One never opens a book written by working men,
without shuddering at a hundred faults of style. However, there are some
very tolerable attempts among these--especially the imitations of Milton's
'Comus.'"

Poor I had by no means intended them as imitations; but such, no doubt,
they were.

"I am sorry to see that Shelley has had so much influence on your writing.
He is a guide as irregular in taste, as unorthodox in doctrine; though
there are some pretty things in him now and then. And you have caught his
melody tolerably here, now--"

"Oh, that is such a sweet thing!" said Lillian. "Do you know, I read it
over and over last night, and took it up-stairs with me. How very fond
of beautiful things you must be, Mr. Locke, to be able to describe so
passionately the longing after them."

That voice once more! It intoxicated me, so that I hardly knew what I
stammered out--something about working men having very few opportunities
of indulging the taste for--I forget what. I believe I was on the point
of running off into some absurd compliment, but I caught the dark lady's
warning eye on me.

"Ah, yes! I forgot. I dare say it must be a very stupid life. So little
opportunity, as he says. What a pity he is a tailor, papa! Such an
unimaginative employment! How delightful it would be to send him to college
and make him a clergyman!"

Fool that I was! I fancied--what did I not fancy?--never seeing how that
very "_he_" bespoke the indifference--the gulf between us. I was not a
man--an equal; but a thing--a subject, who was to be talked over, and
examined, and made into something like themselves, of their supreme and
undeserved benevolence.

"Gently, gently, fair lady! We must not be as headlong as some people would
kindly wish to be. If this young man really has a proper desire to rise
into a higher station, and I find him a fit object to be assisted in
that praiseworthy ambition, why, I think he ought to go to some training
college; St. Mark's, I should say, on the whole, might, by its strong
Church principles, give the best antidote to any little remaining taint of
_sansculottism_. You understand me, my lord? And, then, if he distinguished
himself there, it would be time to think of getting him a sizarship."

"Poor Pegasus in harness!" half smiled, half sighed, the dark lady.

"Just the sort of youth," whispered Lord Lynedale, loud enough for me to
hear, "to take out with us to the Mediterranean as secretary--s'il y avait
là de la morale, of course--"

Yes--and of course, too, the tailor's boy was not expected to understand
French. But the most absurd thing was, how everybody, except perhaps the
dark lady, seemed to take for granted that I felt myself exceedingly
honoured, and must consider it, as a matter of course, the greatest
possible stretch of kindness thus to talk me over, and settle everything
for me, as if I was not a living soul, but a plant in a pot. Perhaps they
were not unsupported by experience. I suppose too many of us would have
thought it so; there are flunkeys in all ranks, and to spare. Perhaps the
true absurdity was the way in which I sat, demented, inarticulate, staring
at Lillian, and only caring for any word which seemed to augur a chance of
seeing her again; instead of saying, as I felt, that I had no wish whatever
to rise above my station; no intention whatever of being sent to training
schools or colleges, or anywhere else at the expense of other people. And
therefore it was that I submitted blindly, when the dean, who looked as
kind, and was really, I believe, as kind as ever was human being, turned to
me with a solemn authoritative voice--

"Well, my young friend, I must say that I am, on the whole, very much
pleased with your performance. It corroborates, my dear lord, the
assertion, for which I have been so often ridiculed, that there are many
real men, capable of higher things, scattered up and down among the masses.
Attend to me, sir!" (a hint which I suspect I very much wanted). "Now,
recollect; if it should be hereafter in our power to assist your prospects
in life, you must give up, once and for all, the bitter tone against the
higher classes, which I am sorry to see in your MSS. As you know more of
the world, you will find that the poor are not by any means as ill used as
they are taught, in these days, to believe. The rich have their sorrows
too--no one knows it better than I"--(and he played pensively with his gold
pencil-case)--"and good and evil are pretty equally distributed among all
ranks, by a just and merciful God. I advise you most earnestly, as you
value your future success in life, to give up reading those unprincipled
authors, whose aim is to excite the evil passions of the multitude; and
to shut your ears betimes to the extravagant calumnies of demagogues, who
make tools of enthusiastic and imaginative minds for their own selfish
aggrandisement. Avoid politics; the workman has no more to do with them
than the clergyman. We are told, on divine authority, to fear God and the
king, and meddle not with those who are given to change. Rather put before
yourself the example of such a man as the excellent Dr. Brown, one of the
richest and most respected men of the university, with whom I hope to have
the pleasure of dining this evening--and yet that man actually, for several
years of his life, worked at a carpenter's bench!"

I too had something to say about all that. I too knew something about
demagogues and working men: but the sight of Lillian made me a coward; and
I only sat silent as the thought flashed across me, half ludicrous, half
painful, by its contrast, of another who once worked at a carpenter's
bench, and fulfilled his mission--not by an old age of wealth,
respectability, and port wine; but on the Cross of Calvary. After all, the
worthy old gentleman gave me no time to answer.

"Next--I think of showing these MSS. to my publisher, to get his opinion as
to whether they are worth printing just now. Not that I wish you to build
much on the chance. It is not necessary that you should be a poet. I should
prefer mathematics for you, as a methodic discipline of the intellect.
Most active minds write poetry, at a certain age--I wrote a good deal, I
recollect, myself. But that is no reason for publishing. This haste to rush
into print is one of the bad signs of the times--a symptom of the unhealthy
activity which was first called out by the French revolution. In the
Elizabethan age, every decently-educated gentleman was able, as a matter of
course, to indite a sonnet to his mistress's eye-brow, or an epigram on his
enemy; and yet he never dreamt of printing them. One of the few rational
things I have met with, Eleanor, in the works of your very objectionable
pet Mr. Carlyle--though indeed his style is too intolerable to have allowed
me to read much--is the remark that 'speech is silver'--'silvern' he calls
it, pedantically--'while silence is golden.'"

At this point of the sermon, Lillian fled from the room, to my extreme
disgust. But still the old man prosed--

"I think, therefore, that you had better stay with your cousin for the next
week. I hear from Lord Lynedale that he is a very studious, moral, rising
young man; and I only hope that you will follow his good example. At the
end of the week I shall return home, and then I shall be glad to see more
of you at my house at D * * * *, about * * * * miles from this place. Good
morning."

I went, in rapture at the last announcement--and yet my conscience smote
me. I had not stood up for the working men. I had heard them calumniated,
and held my tongue--but I was to see Lillian. I had let the dean fancy I
was willing to become a pensioner on his bounty--that I was a member of
the Church of England, and willing to go to a Church Training School--but
I was to see Lillian. I had lowered myself in my own eyes--but I had seen
Lillian. Perhaps I exaggerated my own offences: however that may be, love
soon, silenced conscience, and I almost danced into my cousin's rooms on my
return.

* * * * *

That week passed rapidly and happily. I was half amused with the change in
my cousin's demeanour. I had evidently risen immensely in his eyes; and I
could not help applying, in my heart, to him, Mr. Carlyle's dictum about
the valet species--how they never honour the unaccredited hero, having
no eye to find him out till properly accredited, and countersigned, and
accoutred with full uniform and diploma by that great god, Public Opinion.
I saw through the motive of his new-fledged respect for me--and yet
encouraged it; for it flattered my vanity. The world must forgive me. It
was something for the poor tailor to find himself somewhat appreciated at
last, even outwardly. And besides, this sad respect took a form which was
very tempting to me now--though the week before it was just the one which
I should have repelled with scorn. George became very anxious to lend me
money, to order me clothes at his own tailor's, and set me up in various
little toilette refinements, that I might make a respectable appearance
at the dean's. I knew that he consulted rather the honour of the family,
than my good; but I did not know that his aim was also to get me into his
power; and I refused more and more weakly at each fresh offer, and at last
consented, in an evil hour, to sell my own independence, for the sake of
indulging my love-dream, and appearing to be what I was not.

I saw little of the University men; less than I might have done; less,
perhaps, than I ought to have done. My cousin did not try to keep me from
them; they, whenever I met them, did not shrink from me, and were civil
enough: but I shrank from them. My cousin attributed my reserve to modesty,
and praised me for it in his coarse fashion: but he was mistaken. Pride,
rather, and something very like envy, kept me silent. Always afraid (at
that period of my career) of young men of my own age, I was doubly afraid
of these men; not because they were cleverer than I, for they were not, but
because I fancied I had no fair chance with them; they had opportunities
which I had not, read and talked of books of which I knew nothing; and when
they did touch on matters which I fancied I understood, it was from a point
of view so different from mine, that I had to choose, as I thought, between
standing up alone to be baited by the whole party, or shielding myself
behind a proud and somewhat contemptuous silence. I looked on them as
ignorant aristocrats; while they looked on me, I verily believe now, as a
very good sort of fellow, who ought to talk well, but would not; and went
their way carelessly. The truth is, I did envy those men. I did not envy
them their learning; for the majority of men who came into my cousin's room
had no learning to envy, being rather brilliant and agreeable men than
severe students; but I envied them their opportunities of learning; and
envied them just as much their opportunities of play--their boating, their
cricket, their foot-ball, their riding, and their gay confident carriage,
which proceeds from physical health and strength, and which I mistook for
the swagger of insolence; while Parker's Piece, with its games, was a sight
which made me grind my teeth, when I thought of the very different chance
of physical exercise which falls to the lot of a London artisan.

And still more did I envy them when I found that many of them combined, as
my cousin did, this physical exercise with really hard mental work, and
found the one help the other. It was bitter to me--whether it ought to have
been so or not--to hear of prizemen, wranglers, fellows of colleges, as
first rate oars, boxers, foot-ball players; and my eyes once fairly filled
with tears, when, after the departure of a little fellow no bigger or
heavier than myself, but with the eye and the gait of a game-cock, I was
informed that he was "bow-oar in the University eight, and as sure to be
senior classic next year as he has a head on his shoulders." And I thought
of my nights of study in the lean-to garret, and of the tailor's workshop,
and of Sandy's den, and said to myself bitter words, which I shall not
set down. Let gentlemen readers imagine them for themselves; and judge
rationally and charitably of an unhealthy working-man like me, if
his tongue be betrayed, at moments, to envy, hatred, malice, and all
uncharitableness.

However, one happiness I had--books. I read in my cousin's room from
morning till night. He gave me my meals hospitably enough: but disappeared
every day about four to "hall"; after which he did not reappear till eight,
the interval being taken up, he said, in "wines" and an hour of billiards.
Then he sat down to work, and read steadily and well till twelve, while
I, nothing loth, did the same; and so passed, rapidly enough, my week at
Cambridge.

CHAPTER XIV.

A CATHEDRAL TOWN.

At length, the wished-for day had arrived; and, with my cousin, I was
whirling along, full of hope and desire, towards the cathedral town of
D * * * *--through a flat fen country, which though I had often heard it
described as ugly, struck my imagination much. The vast height and width
of the sky-arch, as seen from those flats as from an ocean--the grey haze
shrouding the horizon of our narrow land-view, and closing us in, till
we seemed to be floating through infinite space, on a little platform of
earth; the rich poplar-fringed farms, with their herds of dappled oxen--the
luxuriant crops of oats and beans--the tender green of the tall-rape, a
plant till then unknown to me--the long, straight, silver dykes, with their
gaudy carpets of strange floating water-plants, and their black banks,
studded with the remains of buried forests--the innumerable draining-mills,
with their creaking sails and groaning wheels--the endless rows of pollard
willows, through which the breeze moaned and rung, as through the strings
of some vast Æolian harp; the little island knolls in that vast sea of
fen, each with its long village street, and delicately taper spire; all
this seemed to me to contain an element of new and peculiar beauty.