More of your lining And less of your dining."
At last Swift, hearing that he was again to be pa.s.sed over, gave a positive intimation that he would retire if nothing was done; adding that he should complain of Harley for nothing but neglecting to inform him sooner of the hopelessness of his position.[38] The dean of St. Patrick"s was at last promoted to a bishopric, and Swift appointed to the vacant deanery. The warrant was signed on April 23, and in June Swift set out to take possession of his deanery. It was no great prize; he would have to pay 1000_l._ for the house and fees, and thus, he says, it would be three years before he would be the richer for it; and, moreover, it involved what he already described as "banishment" to a country which he hated.
His state of mind when entering upon his preferment was painfully depressed. "At my first coming," he writes to Miss Vanhomrigh, "I thought I should have died with discontent; and was horribly melancholy while they were installing me; but it begins to wear off, and change to dulness."
This depression is singular, when we remember that Swift was returning to the woman for whom he had the strongest affection, and from whom he had been separated for nearly three years; and moreover, that he was returning as a famous and a successful man. He seems to have been received with some disfavour by a society of Whig proclivities; he was suffering from a fresh return of ill-health; and besides the absence from the political struggles in which he was so keenly interested, he could not think of them without deep anxiety. He returned to London in October at the earnest request of political friends. Matters were looking serious; and though the journal to Stella was not again taken up, we can pretty well trace the events of the following period.
There can rarely have been a less congenial pair of colleagues than Harley and St. John. Their union was that of a still more brilliant, daring, and self-confident Disraeli with a very inferior edition of Sir Robert Peel, with smaller intellect and exaggerated infirmities. The timidity, procrastination, and "refinement" of the Treasurer were calculated to exasperate his audacious colleague. From the earliest period Swift had declared that everything depended upon the good mutual understanding of the two; he was frightened by every symptom of discord, and declares (in August, 1711) that he has ventured all his credit with the Ministers to remove their differences. He knew, as he afterwards said (October 20, 1711), that this was the way to be sent back to his willows at Laracor, but everything must be risked in such a case. When difficulties revived next year he hoped that he had made a reconciliation. But the discord was too vital. The victory of the Tories brought on a serious danger. They had come into power to make peace. They had made it. The next question was that of the succession of the crown. Here they neither reflected the general opinion of the nation nor were agreed amongst themselves. Harley, as we now know, had flirted with the Jacobites; and Bolingbroke was deep in treasonable plots. The existence of such plots was a secret to Swift, who indignantly denied their existence. When King hinted at a possible danger to Swift from the discovery of St. John"s treason, he indignantly replied that he must have been "a most false and vile man" to join in anything of the kind.[39] He professes elsewhere his conviction that there were not at this period 500 Jacobites in England; and "amongst these not six of any quality or consequence."[40] Swift"s sincerity, here as everywhere, is beyond all suspicion; but his conviction proves incidentally that he was in the dark as to the "wheels within wheels"--the backstairs plots, by which the administration of his friends was hampered and distracted. With so many causes for jealousy and discord, it is no wonder that the political world became a ma.s.s of complex intrigue and dispute. The queen, meanwhile, might die at any moment, and some decided course of action become imperatively necessary. Whenever the queen was ill, said Harley, people were at their wits" end; as soon as she recovered they acted as if she were immortal. Yet, though he complained of the general indecision, his own conduct was most hopelessly undecided.
It was in the hopes of pacifying these intrigues that Swift was recalled from Ireland. He plunged into the fight, but not with his old success. Two pamphlets which he published at the end of 1713 are indications of his state of mind. One was an attack upon a wild no-popery shriek emitted by Bishop Burnet, whom he treats, says Johnson, "like one whom he is glad of an opportunity to insult." A man who, like Burnet, is on friendly terms with those who a.s.sail the privileges of his order must often expect such treatment from its zealous adherents. Yet the scornful a.s.sault, which finds out weak places enough in Burnet"s mental rhetoric, is in painful contrast to the dignified argument of earlier pamphlets. The other pamphlet was an incident in a more painful contest. Swift had tried to keep on good terms with Addison and Steele. He had prevented Steele"s dismissal from a Commissionership of Stamps. Steele, however, had lost his place of Gazetteer for an attack upon Harley. Swift persuaded Harley to be reconciled to Steele, on condition that Steele should apologize. Addison prevented Steele from making the required submission, "out of mere spite,"
says Swift, at the thought that Steele should require other help; rather, we guess, because Addison thought that the submission would savour of party infidelity. A coldness followed; "all our friendship is over," says Swift of Addison (March 6th, 1711); and though good feeling revived between the princ.i.p.als, their intimacy ceased. Swift, swept into the ministerial vortex, pretty well lost sight of Addison; though they now and then met on civil terms. Addison dined with Swift and St. John upon April 3rd, 1713, and Swift attended a rehearsal of _Cato_--the only time when we see him at a theatre. Meanwhile the ill feeling to Steele remained, and bore bitter fruit.
Steele and Addison had to a great extent retired from politics, and during the eventful years 1711-12 were chiefly occupied in the politically harmless _Spectator_. But Steele was always ready to find vent for his zeal; and in 1713 he fell foul of the _Examiner_ in the _Guardian_. Swift had long ceased to write _Examiners_ or to be responsible for the conduct of the paper, though he still occasionally inspired the writers. Steele, naturally enough, supposed Swift to be still at work; and in defending a daughter of Steele"s enemy, Nottingham, not only suggested that Swift was her a.s.sailant, but added an insinuation that Swift was an infidel. The imputation stung Swift to the quick. He had a sensibility to personal attacks, not rare with those who most freely indulge in them, which was ridiculed by the easy-going Harley. An attack from an old friend--from a friend whose good opinion he still valued, though their intimacy had ceased; from a friend, moreover, whom in spite of their separation he had tried to protect; and, finally, an attack upon the tenderest part of his character, irritated him beyond measure. Some angry letters pa.s.sed, Steele evidently regarding Swift as a traitor, and disbelieving his professions of innocence and his claims to active kindness; whilst Swift felt Steele"s ingrat.i.tude the more deeply from the apparent plausibility of the accusation. If Steele was really unjust and ungenerous, we may admit as a partial excuse that in such cases the less prosperous combatant has a kind of right to bitterness. The quarrel broke out at the time of Swift"s appointment to the deanery. Soon after the new dean"s return to England, Steele was elected member for Stockbridge, and rushed into political controversy. His most conspicuous performance was a frothy and pompous pamphlet called the _Crisis_, intended to rouse alarms as to French invasion and Jacobite intrigues. Swift took the opportunity to revenge himself upon Steele. Two pamphlets--_The importance of the "Guardian"
considered_, and _The Public Spirit of the Whigs_ (the latter in answer to the _Crisis_)--are fierce attacks upon Steele personally and politically.
Swift"s feeling comes out sufficiently in a remark in the first. He reverses the saying about Cranmer, and says that he may affirm of Steele, "Do him a good turn, and he is your enemy for ever." There is vigorous writing enough, and effective ridicule of Steele"s literary style and political alarmism. But it is painfully obvious, as in the attack upon Burnet, that personal animosity is now the predominant instead of an auxiliary feeling. Swift is anxious beyond all things to mortify and humiliate an antagonist. And he is in proportion less efficient as a partizan, though more amusing. He has, moreover, the disadvantage of being politically on the defensive. He is no longer proclaiming a policy, but endeavouring to disavow the policy attributed to his party. The wrath which breaks forth, and the bitter personality with which it is edged, were far more calculated to irritate his opponents than to disarm the lookers-on of their suspicions.
Part of the fury was no doubt due to the growing unsoundness of his political position. Steele in the beginning of 1714 was expelled from the House for the _Crisis_; and an attack made upon Swift in the House of Lords for an incidental outburst against the hated Scots in his reply to the _Crisis_, was only staved off by a manoeuvre of the ministry.
Meanwhile Swift was urging the necessity of union upon men who hated each other more than they regarded any public cause whatever. Swift at last brought his two patrons together in Lady Masham"s lodgings, and entreated them to be reconciled. If, he said, they would agree, all existing mischiefs could be remedied in two minutes. If they would not, the ministry would be ruined in two months. Bolingbroke a.s.sented: Oxford characteristically shuffled, said "all would be well," and asked Swift to dine with him next day. Swift, however, said that he would not stay to see the inevitable catastrophe. It was his natural instinct to hide his head in such moments; his intensely proud and sensitive nature could not bear to witness the triumph of his enemies, and he accordingly retired at the end of May, 1714, to the quiet parsonage of Upper Letcombe in Berkshire.
The public wondered and speculated; friends wrote letters describing the scenes which followed, and desiring Swift"s help; and he read, and walked, and chewed the cud of melancholy reflection, and thought of stealing away to Ireland. He wrote, however, a very remarkable pamphlet, giving his view of the situation, which was not published at the time; events went too fast.
Swift"s conduct at this critical point is most noteworthy. The pamphlet (_Free Thoughts upon the Present State of Affairs_) exactly coincides with all his private and public utterances. His theory was simple and straightforward. The existing situation was the culminating result of Harley"s policy of refinement and procrastination. Swift two years before had written a very able remonstrance with the October Club, who had sought to push Harley into decisive measures; but though he preached patience, he really sympathized with their motives. Instead of making a clean sweep of his opponents, Harley had left many of them in office, either from "refinement"--that over-subtlety of calculation which Swift thought inferior to plain common sense, and which, to use his favourite ill.u.s.tration, is like the sharp knife that mangles the paper, when a plain, blunt paper-knife cuts it properly--or else from inability to move the Queen, which he had foolishly allowed to pa.s.s for unwillingness, in order to keep up the appearance of power. Two things were now to be done; first, a clean sweep should be made of all Whigs and dissenters from office and from the army; secondly, the Court of Hanover should be required to break off all intercourse with the Opposition, on which condition the heir-presumptive (the infant Prince Frederick) might be sent over to reside in England. Briefly, Swift"s policy was a policy of "thorough." Oxford"s vacillations were the great obstacle, and Oxford was falling before the alliance of Bolingbroke with Lady Masham. Bolingbroke might have turned Swift"s policy to the account of the Jacobites; but Swift did not take this into account, and in the _Free Thoughts_ he declares his utter disbelief in any danger to the succession. What side, then, should he take? He sympathized with Bolingbroke"s avowed principles.
Bolingbroke was eager for his help, and even hoped to reconcile him to the red-haired d.u.c.h.ess. But Swift was bound to Oxford by strong personal affection; by an affection which was not diminished even by the fact that Oxford had procrastinated in the matter of Swift"s own preferment; and was, at this very moment, annoying him by delaying to pay the 1000_l._ incurred by his installation in the deanery. To Oxford he had addressed (Nov. 21, 1713) a letter of consolation upon the death of a daughter, possessing the charm which is given to such letters only by the most genuine sympathy with the feelings of the loser, and by a spontaneous selection of the only safe topic--praise of the lost, equally tender and sincere. Every reference to Oxford is affectionate. When, at the beginning of July, Oxford was hastening to his fall, Swift wrote to him another manly and dignified letter, professing an attachment beyond the reach of external accidents of power and rank. The end came soon. Swift heard that Oxford was about to resign. He wrote at once (July 25, 1714) to propose to accompany him to his country house. Oxford replied two days later in a letter oddly characteristic. He begs Swift to come with him; "If I have not tired you _tete-a-tete_, fling away so much of your time upon one who loves you;" and then rather spoils the pathos by a bit of hopeless doggerel. Swift wrote to Miss Vanhomrigh on August 1. "I have been asked,"
he says, "to join with those people now in power; but I will not do it. I told Lord Oxford I would go with him, when he was out; and now he begs it of me, and I cannot refuse him. I meddle not with his faults, as he was a Minister of State; but you know his personal kindness to me was excessive; he distinguished and chose me above all other men, while he was great, and his letter to me the other day was the most moving imaginable."
An intimacy which bore such fruit in time of trial was not one founded upon a servility varnished by self-a.s.sertion. No stauncher friend than Swift ever lived. But his fidelity was not to be put to further proof. The day of the letter just quoted was the day of Queen Anne"s death. The crash which followed ruined the "people now in power" as effectually as Oxford.
The party with which Swift had identified himself, in whose success all his hopes and ambitions were bound up, was not so much ruined as annihilated. "The Earl of Oxford," wrote Bolingbroke to Swift, "was removed on Tuesday. The Queen died on Sunday. What a world is this, and how does fortune banter us!"
CHAPTER VI.
STELLA AND VANESSA.
The final crash of the Tory administration found Swift approaching the end of his forty-seventh year. It found him in his own opinion prematurely aged both in mind and body. His personal prospects and political hopes were crushed. "I have a letter from Dean Swift," says Arbuthnot in September; "he keeps up his n.o.ble spirit, and though like a man knocked down, you may behold him still with a stern countenance and aiming a blow at his adversaries." Yet his adversaries knew, and he knew only too well, that such blows as he could now deliver could at most show his wrath without gratifying his revenge. He was disarmed as well as "knocked down."
He writes to Bolingbroke from Dublin in despair. "I live a country life in town," he says, "see n.o.body, and go every day once to prayers, and hope in a few months to grow as stupid as the present situation of affairs will require. Well, after all, parsons are not such bad company, especially when they are under subjection; and I let none but such come near me."
Oxford, Bolingbroke, and Ormond were soon in exile or the tower; and a letter to Pope next year gives a sufficient picture of Swift"s feelings.
"You know," he said, "how well I loved both Lord Oxford and Bolingbroke, and how dear the Duke of Ormond is to me; do you imagine I can be easy while their enemies are endeavouring to take off their heads?--_I nunc et versus tec.u.m meditare canoros!_" "You are to understand," he says in conclusion, "that I live in the corner of a vast unfurnished house; my family consists of a steward, a groom, a helper in the stable, a footman, and an old maid, who are all at board wages, and when I do not dine abroad or make an entertainment (which last is very rare), I eat a mutton pie and drink half a pint of wine; my amus.e.m.e.nts are defending my small dominions against the archbishop, and endeavouring to reduce my rebellious choir.
_Perditur haec inter misero lux._" In another of the dignified letters which show the finest side of his nature, he offered to join Oxford, whose intrepid behaviour, he says, "has astonished every one but me, who know you so well." But he could do nothing beyond showing sympathy; and he remained alone a.s.serting his authority in his ecclesiastical domains, brooding over the past, and for the time unable to divert his thoughts into any less distressing channel. Some verses written in October "in sickness" give a remarkable expression of his melancholy,--
"Tis true--then why should I repine To see my life so fast decline?
But why obscurely here alone Where I am neither loved nor known?
My state of health none care to learn, My life is here no soul"s concern, And those with whom I now converse Without a tear will tend my hea.r.s.e.
Yet we might have fancied that his lot would not be so unbearable. After all, a fall which ends in a deanery should break no bones. His friends, though hard pressed, survived; and, lastly, was any one so likely to shed tears upon his hea.r.s.e as the woman to whom he was finally returning? The answer to this question brings us to a story imperfectly known to us, but of vital importance in Swift"s history.
We have seen in what masterful fashion Swift took possession of great men.
The same imperious temper shows itself in his relations to women. He required absolute submission. Entrance into the inner circle of his affections could only be achieved by something like abas.e.m.e.nt; but all within it became as a part of himself, to be both cherished and protected without stint. His affectation of brutality was part of a system. On first meeting Lady Burlington at her husband"s house, he ordered her to sing.
She declined. He replied, "Sing, or I will make you. Why, madam, I suppose you take me for one of your English hedge-parsons; sing when I tell you."
She burst into tears and retired. The next time he met her he began, "Pray, madam, are you as proud and ill-natured as when I saw you last?"
She good-humouredly gave in, and Swift became her warm friend. Another lady to whom he was deeply attached was a famous beauty, Anne Long. A whimsical treaty was drawn up, setting forth that "the said Dr. Swift, upon the score of his merit and extraordinary qualities, doth claim the sole and undoubted right that all persons whatever shall make such advance to him as he pleases to demand, any law, claim, custom, privilege of s.e.x, beauty, fortune or quality to the contrary notwithstanding;" and providing that Miss Long shall cease the contumacy in which she has been abetted by the Vanhomrighs, but be allowed in return, in consideration of her being "a Lady of the Toast," to give herself the reputation of being one of Swift"s acquaintance. Swift"s affection for Miss Long is touchingly expressed in private papers, and in a letter written upon her death in retirement and poverty. He intends to put up a monument to her memory, and wrote a notice of her, "to serve her memory," and also, as he characteristically adds, to spite the brother who had neglected her. Years afterwards he often refers to the "edict" which he annually issued in England, commanding all ladies to make him the first advances. He graciously makes an exception in favour of the d.u.c.h.ess of Queensberry, though he observes incidentally that he now hates all people whom he cannot command. This humorous a.s.sumption, like all Swift"s humour, has a strong element of downright earnest. He gives whimsical prominence to a genuine feeling. He is always acting the part of despot, and acting it very gravely. When he stays at Sir Arthur Acheson"s, Lady Acheson becomes his pupil, and is "severely chid" when she reads wrong. Mrs. Pendarves, afterwards Mrs. Delany, says in the same way that Swift calls himself "her master," and corrects her when she speaks bad English.[41] He behaved in the same way to his servants. Delany tells us that he was "one of the best masters in the world," paid his servants the highest rate of wages known, and took great pains to encourage and help them to save. But, on engaging them, he always tested their humility. One of their duties, he told them, would be to take turns in cleaning the scullion"s shoes, and if they objected, he sent them about their business. He is said to have tested a curate"s docility in the same way by offering him sour wine. His dominion was most easily extended over women; and a long list might be easily made out of the feminine favourites who at all periods of his life were in more or less intimate relations with this self-appointed sultan. From the wives of peers and the daughters of lord-lieutenants down to Dublin tradeswomen with a taste for rhyming, and even scullerymaids with no tastes at all, a whole hierarchy of female slaves bowed to his rule, and were admitted into higher and lower degrees of favour.
Esther Johnson, or Stella--to give her the name which she did not receive until after the period of the famous journals--was one of the first of these worshippers. As we have seen, he taught her to write, and when he went to Laracor, she accepted the peculiar position already described. We have no direct statement of their mutual feelings before the time of the journal; but one remarkable incident must be noticed. During his stay in England in 1703-4 Swift had some correspondence with a Dublin clergyman named Tisdall. He afterwards regarded Tisdall with a contempt which, for the present, is only half perceptible in some good-humoured raillery.
Tisdall"s intimacy with "the ladies," Stella and Mrs. Dingley, is one topic, and in the last of Swift"s letters we find that Tisdall has actually made an offer for Stella. Swift had replied in a letter (now lost), which Tisdall called unfriendly, unkind, and unaccountable. Swift meets these reproaches coolly, contemptuously, and straightforwardly. He will not affect unconsciousness of Tisdall"s meaning. Tisdall obviously takes him for a rival in Stella"s affections. Swift replies that he will tell the naked truth. The truth is that "if his fortune and humour served him to think of that state" (marriage) he would prefer Stella to any one on earth. So much, he says, he has declared to Tisdall before. He did not, however, think of his affection as an obstacle to Tisdall"s hopes.
Tisdall had been too poor to marry; but the offer of a living has removed that objection; and Swift undertakes to act what he has. .h.i.therto acted, a friendly though pa.s.sive part. He had thought, he declares, that the affair had gone too far to be broken off; he had always spoken of Tisdall in friendly terms; "no consideration of my own misfortune in losing so good a friend and companion as her" shall prevail upon him to oppose the match, "since it is held so necessary and convenient a thing for ladies to marry, and that time takes off from the l.u.s.tre of virgins in all other eyes but mine."
The letter must have suggested some doubts to Tisdall. Swift alleges as his only reasons for not being a rival in earnest his "humour" and the state of his fortune. The last obstacle might be removed at any moment.
Swift"s prospects, though deferred, were certainly better than Tisdall"s.
Unless, therefore, the humour was more insurmountable than is often the case, Swift"s coolness was remarkable or ominous. It may be that, as some have held, there was nothing behind. But another possibility undoubtedly suggests itself. Stella had received Tisdall"s suit so unfavourably that it was now suspended, and that it finally failed. Stella was corresponding with Swift. It is easy to guess that between the "unaccountable" letter and the contemptuous letter, Swift had heard something from Stella, which put him thoroughly at ease in regard to Tisdall"s attentions.
We have no further information until, seven years afterwards, we reach the _Journal to Stella_, and find ourselves overhearing the "little language."
The first editors scrupled at a full reproduction of what might strike an unfriendly reader as almost drivelling; and Mr. Forster reprinted for the first time the omitted parts of the still accessible letters. The little language is a continuation of Stella"s infantile prattle. Certain letters are a cipher for pet names which may be conjectured. Swift calls himself Pdfr, or Podefar, meaning, as Mr. Forster guesses, "Poor, dear Foolish Rogue." Stella, or rather Esther Johnson, is Ppt, say "Poppet." MD, "my dear," means Stella, and sometimes includes Mrs. Dingley. FW means "farewell," or "foolish wenches;" Lele is taken by Mr. Forster to mean "truly" or "lazy," or "there, there," or to have "other meanings not wholly discoverable." The phrases come in generally by way of leave-taking. "So I got into bed," he says, "to write to MD, MD, for we must always write to MD, MD, MD, awake or asleep;" and he ends, "Go to bed. Help pdfr. Rove pdfr, MD, MD. Nite darling rogues." Here is another sc.r.a.p, "I a.s.sure oo it im vely late now; but zis goes to-morrow; and I must have time to converse with own deerichar MD. Nite de deer Sollahs."
One more leave-taking may be enough. "Farewell, dearest hearts and souls, MD. Farewell, MD, MD, MD. FW, FW, FW. ME, ME. Lele, Lele, Lele, Sollahs, Lele."
The reference to the Golden Farmer already noted is in the words, "I warrant oo don"t remember the Golden Farmer neither, Figgarkick Solly,"
and I will venture to a guess at what Mr. Forster p.r.o.nounces to be inexplicable.[42] May not Solly be the same as "Sollah," generally interpreted by the editors as "sirrah;" and "Figgarkick" possibly be the same as Pilgarlick, a phrase which he elsewhere applies to Stella,[43] and which the dictionaries say means "poor, deserted creature"?
Swift says that as he writes his language he "makes up his mouth just as if he was speaking it." It fits the affectionate caresses in which he is always indulging. Nothing, indeed, can be more charming than the playful little prattle which occasionally interrupts the gossip and the sharp utterances of hope or resentment. In the s.n.a.t.c.hes of leisure, late at night or before he has got up in the morning, he delights in an imaginary chat; for a few minutes of little fondling talk help him to forget his worries, and antic.i.p.ate the happiness of reunion. He caresses her letters, as he cannot touch her hand. "And now let us come and see what this saucy, dear letter of MD says. Come out, letter, come out from between the sheets; here it is underneath, and it will not come out. Come out again, I says; so there. Here it is. What says Pdf to me, pray? says it. Come and let me answer for you to your ladies. Hold up your head then like a good letter." And so he begins a little talk, and prays that they may be never separated again for ten days, whilst he lives. Then he follows their movements in Dublin in pa.s.sages which give some lively little pictures of their old habits. "And where will you go to-day? for I cannot be with you for the ladies." [He is off sight-seeing to the Tower and Bedlam with Lady Kerry and a friend.] "It is a rainy, ugly day; I would have you send for Wales, and go to the dean"s; but do not play small games when you lose.
You will be ruined by Manilio, Basto, the queen, and two small trumps in red. I confess it is a good hand against the player. But, then, there are Spadilio, Punto, the king, strong trumps against you, which with one rump more are three tricks ten ace; for suppose you play your Manilio--O, silly, how I prate and cannot get away from MD in a morning. Go, get you gone, dear naughty girls, and let me rise." He delights again in turning to account his queer talent for making impromptu proverbs,--
Be you lords or be you earls, You must write to naughty girls.
Or again,--
Mr. White and Mr. Red Write to M.D. when abed: Mr. Black and Mr. Brown Write to M.D. when you are down: Mr. Oak and Mr. Willow Write to M.D. on your pillow.
And here is one more for the end of the year,--
Would you answer M.D."s letter On New Year"s Day you will do it better: For when the year with M.D. "gins It without M.D. never "lins.
"These proverbs," he explains, "have always old words in them; _lin_ is leave off."
But if on new year you write nones M.D. then will bang your bones.
Reading these fond triflings we feel even now as though we were unjustifiably prying into the writer"s confidence. What are we to say to them? We might simply say that the tender playfulness is charming; and that it is delightful to find the stern gladiator turning from party-warfare to soothe his wearied soul with these tender caresses. There is but one drawback. Macaulay imitates some of this prattle in his charming letters to his younger sister, and there we can accept it without difficulty. But Stella was not Swift"s younger sister. She was a beautiful and clever woman of thirty, when he was in the prime of his powers at forty-four. If Tisdall could have seen the journal he would have ceased to call Swift "unaccountable." Did all this caressing suggest nothing to Stella? Swift does not write as an avowed lover; Dingley serves as a chaperone even in these intimate confidences; and yet a word or two escapes which certainly reads like something more than fraternal affection. He apologizes (May 23, 1711) for not returning; "I will say no more, but beg you to be easy till fortune takes her course, and to believe that MD"s felicity is the great goal I aim at in all my pursuits." If such words addressed under such circ.u.mstances did not mean "I hope to make you my wife as soon as I get a deanery," there must have been some distinct understanding to limit their force.
But another character enters the drama, Mrs. Vanhomrigh,[44] a widow rich enough to mix in good society, was living in London with two sons and two daughters, and made Swift"s acquaintance in 1708. Her eldest daughter, Hester, was then seventeen, or about ten years younger than Stella. When Swift returned to London in 1710, he took lodgings close to the Vanhomrighs, and became an intimate of the family. In the daily reports of his dinner, the name Van occurs more frequently than any other. Dinner, let us observe in pa.s.sing, had not then so much as now the character of a solemn religious rite, implying a formal invitation. The ordinary hour was three (though Harley with his usual procrastination often failed to sit down till six), and Swift, when not pre-engaged, looked in at Court or elsewhere in search of an invitation. He seldom failed: and when n.o.body else offered he frequently went to the "Vans." The name of the daughter is only mentioned two or three times; whilst it is perhaps a suspicious circ.u.mstance that he very often makes a quasi-apology for his dining-place. "I was so lazy I dined where my new gown was, at Mrs.
Vanhomrigh"s," he says, in May, 1711; and a day or two later explains that he keeps his "best gown and periwig" there whilst he is lodging at Chelsea, and often dines there "out of mere listlessness." The phrase may not have been consciously insincere; but Swift was drifting into an intimacy which Stella could hardly approve, and, if she desired Swift"s love, would regard as ominous. When Swift took possession of his deanery, he revealed his depression to Miss Vanhomrigh, who about this time took the t.i.tle Vanessa; and Vanessa again received his confidences from Letcombe. A full account of their relations is given in the remarkable poem called _Cadenus and Vanessa_, less remarkable, indeed, as a poem than as an autobiographical doc.u.ment. It is singularly characteristic of Swift that we can use what, for want of a better cla.s.sification, must be called a love poem, as though it were an affidavit in a law-suit. Most men would feel some awkwardness in hinting at sentiments conveyed by Swift in the most downright terms; to turn them into a poem would seem preposterous.
Swift"s poetry, however, is always plain matter of fact, and we may read _Cadenus_ (which means of course _Deca.n.u.s_) _and Vanessa_ as Swift"s deliberate and palpably sincere account of his own state of mind. Omitting a superfluous framework of mythology in the contemporary taste, we have a plain story of the relations of this new Helose and Abelard. Vanessa, he tells us, united masculine accomplishments to feminine grace; the fashionable fops (I use Swift"s own words as much as possible) who tried to entertain her with the tattle of the day, stared when she replied by applications of Plutarch"s morals; the ladies from the purlieus of St.
James"s found her reading Montaigne at her toilet, and were amazed by her ignorance of the fashions. Both were scandalized at the waste of such charms and talents due to the want of so called knowledge of the world.
Meanwhile, Vanessa, not yet twenty, met and straightway admired Cadenus, though his eyes were dim with study and his health decayed. He had grown old in politics and wit; was caressed by ministers; dreaded and hated by half mankind, and had forgotten the arts by which he had once charmed ladies, though merely for amus.e.m.e.nt and to show his wit.[45] He did not understand what was love; he behaved to Vanessa as a father might behave to a daughter;
That innocent delight he took To see the virgin mind her book Was but the master"s secret joy In school to hear the finest boy.
Vanessa, once the quickest of learners, grew distracted. He apologized for having bored her by his pedantry, and offered a last adieu. She then startled him by a confession. He had taught her, she said, that virtue should never be afraid of disclosures; that n.o.ble minds were above common maxims (just what he had said to Varina), and she therefore told him frankly that his lessons, aimed at her head, had reached her heart.
Cadenus was utterly taken aback. Her words were too plain to be in jest.
He was conscious of having never for a moment meant to be other than a teacher. Yet every one would suspect him of intentions to win her heart and her five thousand pounds. He tried not to take things seriously.
Vanessa, however, became eloquent. She said that he had taught her to love great men through their books; why should she not love the living reality?
Cadenus was flattered and half converted. He had never heard her talk so well, and admitted that she had a most unfailing judgment and discerning head. He still maintained that his dignity and age put love out of the question, but he offered in return as much friendship as she pleased. She replies that she will now become tutor and teach him the lesson which he is so slow to learn. But--and here the revelation ends--