I must mention, though briefly, certain writings which represent his views upon religious matters: I have sufficiently indicated his position, which was never materially changed. His thoughts ran in the old grooves, though perhaps with a rather clearer perception of their direction. In June 1884 he published an article upon the "Unknown and the Unknowable" in the "Nineteenth Century," declaring that Mr. Herbert Spencer"s "Unknowable" and Mr. Harrison"s "Humanity" were mere shadowy figments. "Religion," he maintains, will not survive theology. To this, however, he adds, with rather surprising calmness, that morality will survive religion. If the Agnostics and Positivists triumph, it will be transformed, not abolished. The Christian admiration for self-sacrifice, indeed, and the Christian mysticism will disappear, and it will turn out that the respectable man of the world and the lukewarm believer were after all in the right. Considering his own dislike to the mystic and the priestly view of things, this might almost seem to imply a reconciliation with the sceptics. He observes, indeed, in a letter that there is really little difference between himself and Mr. Harrison, except in Mr. Harrison"s more enthusiastic view of human nature. But he confesses also that the article has given pleasure to his enemies and pain to his friends. Though his opinions, in short, are sceptical, the consequences seem to him so disagreeable that he has no desire to insist upon them. In fact, he wrote little more upon these topics. He was, indeed, afterwards roused to utterance by an ingenious attempt of Mr.
Mivart to show a coincidence between full submission to the authority of the Catholic Church and an equal acceptance of the authority of reason.
In a couple of articles in the "Nineteenth Century" (October 1887 and January 1888), he argued with his old vigour that Mr. Mivart was in fact proposing to put a match in a powder barrel and expect half to explode and the other half to remain unaffected. This was his last encounter upon the old question of authority. In the same year (April and May 1888) he wrote two articles upon a book by which he was singularly interested, Professor Max Muller"s "Science of Thought"; he expounds Professor Max Muller"s philology in the tone of an ardent disciple, but makes his own application to philosophy. I do not suppose that the teacher would accept all the deductions of his follower. Fitzjames, in fact, found in the "Science of Thought" a scientific exposition of the nominalism which he had more or less consciously accepted from Hobbes or Horne Tooke. Max Muller, he says, in a letter, has been knocking out the bottom of all speculative theology and philosophy. Thought and language, as he understands his teacher to maintain, are identical. Now language is made up of about 120 roots combined in various ways. The words supposed to express more abstract conceptions, some of them highly important in theology, are mere metaphors founded upon previous metaphors, twisted and changed in meaning from century to century.
Nothing remains but an almost absolute scepticism, for on such terms no certainty can be obtained. In a letter he states that the only problems which we can really solve are those of s.p.a.ce and number; that even astronomy involves a.s.sumptions to which there are "unanswerable objections"; that what is loosely called science, Darwinism, for example, is "dubious in the extreme"; that theology and politics are so conjectural as to be practically worthless; and judicial and historical evidence little more than a makeshift. In short, his doctrine is "scepticism directed more particularly against modern science and philosophy." I do not take these hasty utterances as expressing a settled state of opinion. I only quote them as vehement expressions of an instinctive tendency. His strong conviction of the fallacies and immoralities of the old theological dogmatism was combined with an equally strong conviction of the necessity of some embodiment of the religious instincts and of the impotence of the scientific dogmatism to supply it. He therefore was led to a peculiar version of the not uncommon device of meeting the sceptic by a more thorough-going scepticism. It is peculiar because he scorned to take the further step of accepting a dogmatic belief on sceptical grounds; but it certainly left him in a position of which silence was, if I may say so, the only obvious expression of his feeling.
One curious ill.u.s.tration of his feelings is given by an utterance at the beginning of this period. n.o.body had less tendency to indulge in versification. When a man has anything to say, he observes to Lord Lytton on one occasion, as an excuse for not criticising his friend adequately, "I am always tempted to ask why he cannot say it in plain prose." I find now that he once wrote some lines on circuit, putting a judgment into rhyme, and that they were read with applause at a dinner before the judges. They have disappeared; but I can quote part of his only other attempt at poetry. Tennyson"s poem called "Despair" had just appeared in the "Nineteenth Century" for November 1881. The hero, it will be remembered, maddened by sermons about h.e.l.l and by "know-nothing"
literature, throws himself into the sea with his wife and is saved by his preacher. The rescuer only receives curses instead of thanks.
Fitzjames supplies the preacher"s retort.[193] I give a part; omitting a few lines which, I think, verged too much on the personal:--
So you"re minded to curse me, are you, for not having let you be, And for taking the trouble to pull you out when your wife was drowned in the sea?
I"m inclined to think you are right--there was not much sense in it; But there was no time to think--the thing was done in a minute.
You had not gone very far in; you had fainted where you were found, You"re the sort of fellow that likes to drown with his toe on the ground.
However, you turn upon me and my creed with all sorts of abuse, As if any preaching of mine could possibly be of use To a man who refused to see what sort of a world he had got To live in and make the best of, whether he liked it or not.
I am not sure what you mean; you seem to mean to say That believing in h.e.l.l you were happy, but that one unfortunate day You found out you knew nothing about it, whereby the troubles of life Became at once too heavy to bear for yourself and your wife.
That sounds silly; so, perhaps, you may mean that all is wrong all round, My creed and the know-nothing books, and that truth is not to be found-- That"s sillier still: for, if so, the know-nothing books are right, And you"re a mere spiritless cur who can neither run nor fight, Too great a coward to live and too great a coward to die, Fit for nothing at all but just to sit down and cry.
Why, man, we"re all in one boat, as everyone can see, Bishops, and priests, and deacons, and poor little ranters like me.
There"s h.e.l.l in the Church of England and h.e.l.l in the Church of Rome, And in all other Christian Churches, abroad as well as at home.
The part of my creed you dislike may be too stern for you, Many brave men believe it--aye, and enjoy life, too.
The know-nothing books may alarm you; but many a better man Knows he knows nothing and says so, and lives the best life he can.
If there is a future state, face its hopes and terrors gravely; The best path to it must be to bear life"s burthens bravely.
And even if there be none, why should you not live like a man, Enjoying whatever you have as much and as long as you can?
In the world in which we are living there"s plenty to do and to know; And there"s always something to hope for till it"s time for us to go.
"Despair" is the vilest of words, unfit to be said or thought, Whether there is a G.o.d and a future state or not.
If you really are such a wretch, that you"re quite unfit to live, And ask my advice, I"ll give you the best that I have to give: Drown yourself by all means; I was wrong and you were right.
I"ll not pull you out any more; but be sure you drown yourself quite.
"Despair is the vilest of words." That expresses Fitzjames"s whole belief and character. Faiths may be shaken and dogmas fade into meaningless jumbles of words: science may be unable to supply any firm ground for conduct. Still we can quit ourselves like men. From doubt and darkness he can still draw the practical conclusion, "Be strong and of a good courage." And, therefore, Fitzjames could not be a pessimist in the proper sense; for the true pessimist is one who despairs of the universe. Such a man can only preach resignation to inevitable evil, and his best hope is extinction. Sir Alfred Lyall"s fine poem describes the Hindoo ascetic sitting by the bank of the sacred stream and watching the legions as they pa.s.s while cannon roar and bayonets gleam. To him they are disturbing phantoms, and he longs for the time when they will flicker away like the smoke of the guns on the windswept hill. He meanwhile sits "musing and fasting and hoping to die." Fitzjames is the precise ant.i.thesis: his heart was with the trampling legions, and for the ascetic he might feel pity, but certainly neither sympathy nor respect. He goes out of his way more than once to declare that he sees nothing sublime in Buddhism. "Nirvana," he says in a letter, "always appeared to me to be at bottom a cowardly ideal. For my part I like far better the Carlyle or Calvinist notion of the world as a mysterious hall of doom, in which one must do one"s fated part to the uttermost, acting and hoping for the best and trusting" that somehow or other our admiration of the "n.o.blest human qualities" will be justified. He had thus an instinctive dislike not only for Buddhism, but for the strain of similar sentiment in ascetic versions of Christianity. He had a great respect for Mohammedanism, and remarks that of all religious ceremonies at which he had been present, those which had most impressed him had been a great Mohammedan feast in India and the service in a simple Scottish kirk. There, as I interpret him, worshippers seem to be in the immediate presence of the awful and invisible Power which rules the universe; and without condescending to blind themselves by delusive symbols and images and incense and priestly magic, stand face to face with the inscrutable mystery. The old Puritanism comes out in a new form. The Calvinist creed, he says in "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,"
was the "grain on which the bravest, hardiest, and most vigorous race of men that ever trod the earth were nourished." That creed, stripped of its scholastic formulas, was sufficient nourishment for him. He sympathises with it wherever he meets it. He is fond of quoting even a rough blackguard, one Azy Smith, who, on being summoned to surrender to a policeman, replied by sentencing "Give up" to a fate which may be left to the imagination. Fitzjames applied the sentiment to the British Empire in India. He was curiously impressed, too, by some verses which he found in an Australian newspaper and was afterwards given to quoting.
They turned out to be written by Adam Lindsay Gordon (the "Sick Stockrider").
I have had my share of pastime, and I"ve done my share of toil, And life is short--the longest life a span.
I care not now to tarry for the corn or for the oil, Or for the wine that maketh glad the heart of man; For good undone and time misspent and resolutions vain "Tis somewhat late to trouble--this I know; I would live the same life over if I had to live again And the chances are I go where most men go.
I am perfectly well aware of the comments which that statement may suggest. The orthodox may, if they please, draw a moral for their own tastes; and I could draw a moral which is not quite orthodox. I only say that I have tried to describe his final position in the matter, without reserve; and that, in my opinion, whatever else it shows, it reveals both the sincerity and the manliness of a man who dared to look facts in the face.
I must speak, though briefly, of his political sympathies in this period, for they were exceedingly deep and strong. His position as a judge gave him the solace of an employment which could divert his mind from annoying reflections. It may be held that it should also have restrained him more completely than it did from taking any part in party controversies. I confess that to be my own opinion. He felt that he ought to keep within limits; but I cannot help thinking that they might have been a little closer than he would quite acknowledge. The old journalistic impulse, however, stirred within him when he saw certain political moves, and he found it impossible quite to keep silence. The first occasion of his writing was upon the starting of the "St. James"s Gazette," under the editorship of his old friend Mr. Greenwood. Both personal and political sympathy induced him, as he put it, "to take Mr.
Greenwood"s shilling," and I believe that he also enlisted Maine.
Besides the poem which I have quoted, he wrote a good many articles upon legal and literary topics from 1881 to 1883, and some which came very close to contemporary politics. The doctrine may be pretty well summed up in the phrase which he quotes more than once--[Greek: Demos psephizon megalen archen dialysei.] I need not follow the applications which he indicates both to Indian matters and to Mr. Gladstone"s Irish policy.
He ceased to contribute after the beginning of 1883, but he wrote occasional letters under his own name to the "Times." The chief of these (I believe that there were others) were reprinted, and attracted some notice. In 1883 a question arose in which he had a special interest. In pa.s.sing the Criminal Procedure Bill he had accepted what was described as a compromise. Magistrates were to receive powers of dealing summarily in trifling cases with Europeans who had previously had a right to be tried by juries before the High Courts. Fitzjames accepted the proposal that the power should be entrusted only to magistrates of European birth. The "Ilbert Bill," in 1883, proposed to remove this restriction, and so to confer a right of imprisoning Europeans for three months upon native magistrates, of whom there were now a greater number. Fitzjames, whose name had been mentioned in the controversy, wrote very earnestly against this proposal.[194] He a.s.serted the right of Englishmen to be tried by magistrates who could understand their ways of thought, and approved the remark that if we were to remove all anomalies from India, our first step should be to remove ourselves. This, however, was, to his mind, only one example of the intrusion of an evil principle. A more serious case occurred upon Mr. Gladstone"s introduction of the first Home Rule Bill in 1886.
Fitzjames wrote some elaborate letters upon the "Irish Question," when the measure was antic.i.p.ated, and wrote again upon the bill when the debates upon Mr. Gladstone"s proposals were in progress.[195] The letters begin by disavowing any "party politics"--a phrase which he does not consider to exclude an emphatic expression of opinion both upon Home Rule and upon the Land Legislation. It is entirely superfluous to summarise arguments which have been repeated till n.o.body can want to hear more of them. Briefly, I may say that Fitzjames"s teaching might be summarised by saying that Ireland ought to be governed like India--justly, and in any case firmly. The demands both for Home Rule and for land legislation are, according to him, simply corollaries from the general principles of Jacobinism and Socialism. The empire will be destroyed and the landlords will be plundered. Virtually we are dealing with a simple attempt at confiscation supported by an organised system of crime. The argument is put with his usual downright force, and certainly shows no symptoms of any decline of intellectual vigour. He speaks, he says, impelled by the "shame and horror" which an Englishman must feel at our feebleness, and asks whether we are cowards to be kicked with impunity? Sometimes he hoped, though his hopes were not sanguine, that a point would yet be reached at which Englishmen would be roused and would show their old qualities. But as a rule he turned, as his letters show, from the contemplation of modern politics with simple disgust. He is glad that he is, for the time at least, behind a safe breakwater, but no one can say how much longer it will withstand the advancing deluge.
Three months" rest after the attack of 1885 enabled him to go the summer circuit, and during the latter part of the year he was recovering strength. He became so much better that he was, perhaps, encouraged to neglect desirable precautions, and early in 1886 he writes that he has been able to dismiss from his mind a pa.s.sing fear which had been vaguely present, that he might have to resign. In the following September, Mr.
W. H. Smith requested him to become chairman of a Commission to inquire into the Ordnance Department. What he learnt in that capacity strengthened his conviction as to the essential weakness of our administrative system; although the rumours of corruption, to which, I believe, the Commission was owing, were disproved. He made, however, such suggestions as seemed practicable under the circ.u.mstances. While the Commission lasted he presided three days a week, and sat as judge upon the other three. He felt himself so competent to do his duties as to confirm his belief that he had completely recovered. He did a certain amount of literary work after this. He made one more attempt to produce a second edition of the "View of the Criminal Law." Indeed, the t.i.tle-page gives that name to his performance. Once more, however, he found it impossible to refrain from re-writing. The so-called second edition is more properly an abbreviated version of the "History," though the reports of trials still keep their place; and, as the whole forms only one moderately thick volume, it represents much less labour than its predecessors. It includes, however, the result of some later inquiries and of his judicial experience. He abandons, for example, an opinion which he had previously maintained in favour of a Court of Appeal in criminal cases, and is now satisfied with the existing system.
In this shape it is virtually a handbook for students, forming an accompaniment to the "Digest" and the "History." It was the last of his works upon legal topics.
Meanwhile, if he wrote little, he was still reading a great variety of books, and was deeply interested in them. His letters are full of references to various authors, old and new. His criticisms have the primary merits of frankness and independence. He says exactly what he feels, not what the critics tell him that he ought to feel. No criticism can be really valuable which does not fulfil those conditions. I must admit, however, that a collection of his remarks would include a good many observations rather startling to believers in the conventional judgments. Purely literary qualities impress him very little unless they are a.s.sociated with some serious purpose. He shows the same sort of independence which enabled him to accept a solitary position in religious and political matters. In private letters, moreover, he does not think it necessary to insist upon the fact, which he would have fully admitted, that the great object of criticism is always the critic himself. A man who says that he can"t see, generally proves that he is blind, not that there is no light. If only for this reason, I would not quote phrases which would sound unduly crude or even arrogant when taken as absolute judgments, instead of being, as they often are, confessions of indifference in the form of condemnations. When a great writer really appeals to him, he shows no want of enthusiasm. During the enforced rest in 1885 he studied Spanish with great zeal; he calls it a "glorious language," and had the proverbial reward of being enabled to read "Don Quixote" in the original. "Don Quixote," he says, had always attracted him, even in the translations, to a degree for which he cannot quite account. His explanation, however, is apparently adequate, and certainly characteristic. He sees in Cervantes a man of n.o.ble and really chivalrous nature, who looks kindly upon the extravagance which caricatures his own qualities, but also sees clearly that the highest morality is that which is in conformity with plain reason and common sense. Beneath the ridicule of the romances there is the strongest sympathy with all that is really n.o.ble.
After Spanish and Cervantes, Fitzjames turned to Italian and Dante.
Dante, too, roused his enthusiasm, and he observes, quaintly enough, that he means to be as familiar with the "Divina Commedia" as he once was with Bentham--two authors rarely brought into contact. Dante conquered him the more effectually by entering over the ruins of Milton.
Some years before he had p.r.o.nounced the "Paradise Lost" to be "poor, contradictory, broken-down stuff, so far as the story goes." He inferred that "poetry was too slight an affair to grapple with such an awful subject." He had, however, already read Dante in Cary"s translation, and thereby recognised something far greater. When he came to the original he was profoundly impressed. It is strange, he says, that he has learnt for the first time at the age of sixty what a really great poem could be. Poor Milton"s adaptation of pagan mythology to the Hebrew legends, in order to expound Puritan theology, results in a series of solecisms, which even the poet could not expect his readers to take seriously. The story, taken for history, certainly breaks down sufficiently to justify a severe remark. But Dante"s poem, embodying a consistent imagery into which was worked the whole contemporary philosophy and theology, is of absorbing interest even to those who are comparatively indifferent to its more purely literary merits. Fitzjames does not make any detailed criticisms, but fittingly expresses his astonishment and admiration upon Dante"s revelation of a new world of imagination. I think that it is possible to show fitting reverence for Dante without deposing Milton from his much lower, though still very lofty place. But to one brought up in the old English traditions it was difficult to avoid the rather superfluous contrast.
With the help of such studies and frequent visits to old friends, and minor literary tasks, Fitzjames could find ample means of filling up any s.p.a.ces left by his judicial duties. In spite of the disgust with which he regarded the political world, he was happy in his own little world; and his time pa.s.sed in a peaceful round of satisfactory work. A few troublesome cases, those especially of which I have spoken, gave him occasional worry; but he could adhere to his principle of never fretting unnecessarily. But now was to begin the painful experience which comes to the survivors when the ranks begin to thin. He felt such losses deeply, if with little display of feeling. I find a remark in one of his letters which is, I think, characteristic. He says that his first feeling upon a severe blow had been something like shame at not suffering more. But in a few weeks the sense of loss had become deeper and stronger; and he had to remind himself of the necessity of conquering his depression. I have no need, I hope, to dwell upon the strength of his affections. I can never forget one occasion when his sympathies were deeply stirred; and when his sense of a certain awkwardness in expressing himself, a relic of his old prejudice against "sentimentalism," served only to bring out most pathetically the power of the emotions with which he was struggling.
Two severe losses marked the year 1888. Maine died on February 3. The old friendship had lost none of its warmth; and Fitzjames had frequently enjoyed visits to the lodge at Trinity Hall, where Maine, as master, presided over the Christmas gatherings. Fitzjames commemorated his friend by an article in the "Sat.u.r.day Review.[196] In a warm eulogy, he praises the "clearness and sobriety of Maine"s generalisations as well as their intrinsic probability," and declares that the books were written "as if by inspiration." Maine, he says, was equally brilliant as a journalist, as a statesman, and as a thinker. Fitzjames speaks, though a little restrained by his usual reserve, of the "brotherly intimacy of forty years, never interrupted by a pa.s.sing cloud"; and ends by saying that there are "persons to whom the world can never have the same aspect again as when Maine lived in it." It had been a great pleasure, I may add, that he had been able to appoint one of his friend"s sons, who died soon after the father, to a clerkship of a.s.size on the South Wales circuit.
In the autumn Maine was followed by Venables. Fitzjames paid an annual visit to the house where Venables lived with his brother at Llysdinam, on the border of Radnorshire. He often mentions in his letters the filial affection with which he regarded Venables. In the previous year (1887) he had an opportunity of expressing this more directly than usual. One of Venables" friends, Mr. Pember, had suggested that they might show their affection by presenting a stained gla.s.s window to a church which Venables had built. Fitzjames took up the plan warmly, and with the help of a few other friends carried out the scheme. When it was made known to Venables, who of course was much gratified, Fitzjames wrote to him a letter (August 1, 1887) of which I quote the important part. "I found your letter on my return from the country this morning.
You are quite right in thinking that I did say a great deal less than I meant. I feel shy in putting into quite plain words what I feel about you; but I do not like such things to prevent me from saying just once that I like you, honour you, and respect and admire you more than almost any man I ever knew. For nearer forty than thirty years you have been to me a sort of spiritual and intellectual uncle or elder brother, and my feelings about you have constantly grown and strengthened as my own experience of men and books has ripened and deepened and brought me into closer and closer sympathy with you and more complete conscious agreement with all your opinions and sentiments. I can recall none of your words and writings which I have not cordially approved of, and I shall always feel deeply grateful to Mrs. Lyster Venables (Venables"
sister-in-law), for whom also I feel the warmest friendship, and to Pember for suggesting to me a way of showing my feelings about you, which would never have occurred to a person so abundantly gifted with clumsy shyness as myself. However, I do not believe you will like me the worse for having the greatest possible difficulty in writing to any man such a letter as this."
The three lights of the window, representing Moses, Aaron, and Joshua, were intended as portraits of Venables and his two brothers. Beneath was the inscription suggested by Mr. Pember, "Conditori hujus ecclesiae amicissimi quidam." Fitzjames adds that he had felt "a pa.s.sing wish" to add his favourite words, "Be strong and of a good courage," which, at his suggestion, Dean Stanley had taken as the text for a funeral sermon upon Lord Lawrence. I will only add that Fitzjames had said in private letters substantially what he said to Venables himself. On October 8, 1888, he heard of his old friend"s death, and again wrote an article of warm appreciation in the "Sat.u.r.day Review."
V. JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN
I have now to give a brief notice of events which had a saddening influence upon the later years. Fitzjames, as I have remarked, had seen comparatively little of his elder children in their infancy. As they grew up, however, they had been fully admitted to his intimacy and treated on the footing of trusted and reasonable friends. The two younger daughters had been playthings in their infancy, and grew up in an atmosphere of warm domestic affection. Just before Venables" death Fitzjames made a little tour in the West of Ireland with his daughter Rosamond, who has preserved a little account of it. I shall only say that it proves that she had a delightful travelling companion; and that his straightforward ways enabled him to be on the friendliest terms with the natives whom he encountered. Among the frequent declarations of the happiness of his life, he constantly observes that one main condition was that his children had never given him a moment"s uneasiness. Two, indeed, had died in infancy; and Frances, a very promising girl, had died of rheumatic fever July 27, 1880. Such troubles, however deeply felt, cannot permanently lessen the happiness of a healthy and energetic life. His three sons grew into manhood; they all became barristers, and had all acted at different times as his marshals. I shall say nothing of the survivors; but I must speak briefly of the one who died before his father.
James Kenneth Stephen was born on February 25, 1859.[197] His second name commemorates his father"s friendship for his G.o.dfather, Kenneth Macaulay. He was a healthy lad, big and strong, and soon showed much intellectual promise. He was at the school of Mr. William Browning at Thorpe Mandeville; and in 1871 won a foundation scholarship at Eton, where he became the pupil of Mr. Oscar Browning, the brother of his former master. He already gave promise of unusual physical strength, and of the good looks which in later years resulted from the singular combination of power and sweetness in his features. The head of his division was H. C. Goodhart, afterwards Professor of Latin at the University of Edinburgh.[198] Other boys in the division were George Curzon and Cecil Spring Rice. James was surpa.s.sed in scholarship by several of his friends, but enjoyed a high reputation for talent among his cleverest contemporaries. The school, it appears, was not quite so much absorbed by the worship of athletics as was sometimes imagined.
James, however, rowed for two years in the boats, while his weight and strength made him especially formidable at the peculiar Eton game of football "at the wall." The collegers, when supported by his prowess, had the rare glory of defeating the Oppidans twice in succession. He was ever afterwards fond of dilating with humorous enthusiasm upon the merits of that game, and delighted in getting up an eleven of old Etonians to play his successors in the school. He was, however, more remarkable for intellectual achievements. With Mr. Spring Rice and another friend he wrote the "Etonian," which lasted from May 1875 to August 1876; and several of the little poems which he then wrote were collected afterwards in his "Lapsus Calami."[199] They are, of course, chiefly in the humorous vein, but they show sufficiently that Eton was to him very different from what it had been to his father. He was a thoroughly loyal and even enthusiastic Etonian; he satirises a caviller by putting into his mouth the abominable sentiment--
Ye bigot spires, ye Tory towers, That crown the watery lea, Where grateful science still adores The aristocracy.
His genuine feeling is given in the lines on "My old School":--
And if sometimes I"ve laughed in my rhymes at Eton, Whose glory I never could jeopardise, Yet I"d never a joy that I could not sweeten, Or a sorrow I could not exorcise,
By the thought of my school and the brood that"s bred there, Her bright boy faces and keen young life; And the manly stress of the hours that sped there, And the stirring pulse of her daily strife.
To the last he cherished the memory of the school, and carefully maintained his connection with it. One odd incident occurred in 1875, when James got up a "const.i.tutional opposition" to the intrusion of the revivalist preachers Moody and Sankey. His father wrote him a judicial letter of advice, approving his action so long as it was kept within due limits. He takes occasion to draw the moral that the whole power of such people depends upon the badness of their hearers" consciences. A man who has nothing to hide, who is "just, benevolent, temperate and brave," can "look at things coolly and rate such people at their value." Those "few words" (i.e. the names of the virtues) "are the summary of all that is worth having in life. Never forget any one of them for one moment, though you need not talk about them any more than you talk about your watch." James had a marked influence in the college; he was a leading orator in the school debating societies; and his good sayings were as familiarly quoted as those of Sydney Smith or Luttrell in the larger world. Mr. Cornish, who was his tutor for a time, tells me of the charm of James"s talk with his elders, and says that, although he was careless on some matters upon which schoolmasters set a high value, he always showed power and originality. He won an English Essay prize in 1875, the History prize in 1876 and 1877, the Declamation prize in 1878, and was one of the "select" for the Newcastle in 1877.
James went to King"s with a scholarship in 1878. He gave up cla.s.sics and took to history. He took a first cla.s.s (bracketed first in the cla.s.s) in the historical tripos, but was only in the second cla.s.s in the law tripos. Besides prizes for college essays, he won the "Member"s Prize"
for an essay upon Bolingbroke in 1880, and the Whewell Scholarship for International Law in 1881. He succeeded in every compet.i.tion for which he really exerted himself; although, like his father, he was rather indifferent to the regular course of academical instruction. Among his contemporaries, however, he enjoyed the kind of fame which is perhaps of still better augury for future success. King"s College in his day, says Mr. Browning, was only emerging slowly from the effects of its close dependence upon Eton. It had been in former days chiefly a little clique of older schoolboys. James helped much to change this, and distinctly raised the intellectual tone of the place. He was a well-known speaker at the Union, of which he was president in 1882. He was an "Apostle"
too; and in May 1881 his father visited him in Cambridge, and attended a meeting of the Society where James read a paper. Although, therefore, he scarcely won such a share of academical honours as might have been expected, James was regarded by his friends as the man of his time who was most definitely marked out for distinction in later years. His friends, indeed, were innumerable; and from all with whom I have communicated there is a unanimous testimony not only to his intellectual promise, but to his influence in promoting a high tone of thought and feeling. His father"s letters frequently refer to him. James, he says, is a "splendid young fellow"; he will surpa.s.s his father in due time, and be the fourth distinguished man of his name. James, he says once, using the epithet which in his mouth conveyed the highest praise, is a "st.u.r.dier" fellow in many ways than I was, and writes better than I could at his age. One achievement of the son rather extorted than attracted his father"s praise. He appeared in a Greek play as Ajax, a part for which his ma.s.sive frame and generally n.o.ble appearance fitted him admirably. The father admitted that he had a certain dislike to a man"s exhibiting himself personally, but was reconciled by observing that James acted more like a gentleman amusing himself than like a professional performer.
How far these antic.i.p.ations of success would ever have been fulfilled must remain uncertain. James may not have had his father"s extraordinary vigour, but he undoubtedly had one quality in which his father was defective. He had a surprising facility in making friendly alliances with all sorts and conditions of men. His opinions partly resembled his father"s. In politics he was of the Conservative tendency, and he was certainly not of the orthodox persuasion in theology. But he was equally at ease with Tories and Home Rulers, Roman Catholics and Agnostics; and his cheery, cordial manners put him at once on the best understanding with everybody. There was something contagious in the enthusiasm of a young man who seemed so heartily to appreciate the simple joy of living.
Perhaps his weakness was to be a little too versatile in his sympathies and interests.
After taking his degree, James spent some time in Germany and France. He was elected to a fellowship at King"s College in 1885, and as a candidate wrote dissertations upon "Political Science" and "International Law."[200] He was elected, it is said, as much upon the strength of his general ability as for any special performance.
He was called to the bar in 1884, and naturally employed his spare time upon journalism. He wrote a good deal for Mr. Greenwood in the "St.
James"s Gazette," and had extraordinary facility as a writer. Mr.
Reginald Smith tells me how James once wrote a leading article in the train between Paddington and Maidenhead. Many of the little poems which he contributed to periodicals were improvised. He was famous for wit and readiness as an after-dinner speaker; and showed an oratorical power in electioneering speeches which gave the highest hopes of parliamentary success. Indeed, from all that I have heard, I think that his powers in this direction made the greatest impression upon his friends, and convinced them that if he could once obtain an opening, he would make a conspicuous mark in public life.
At the end of 1886 he had an accident, the effects of which were far more serious than appeared at the time. He was staying at Felixstowe, and while looking (December 29, 1886) at an engine employed in pumping water he received a terrible blow upon the head. He returned to his work before long, but it was noticed that for some time he seemed to have lost his usual ease in composition. He was supposed, however, to have recovered completely from the effects of the blow. In the early part of 1888 he astonished his friends by producing a small weekly paper called the "Reflector." It appeared from January 1 to April 21, 1888. He received help from many friends, but wrote the chief part of it himself.
The articles show the versatility of his interests, and include many thoughtful discussions of politics and politicians, besides excursions into literature. Perhaps its most remarkable quality was not favourable to success. It was singularly candid and moderate in tone, and obviously the work of a thoughtful observer. Probably the only chance of success for such a periodical would have been to make a scandal by personality or impropriety. To expect a commercial success from a paper which relied only upon being well written was chimerical, unless the author could have afforded to hold out in a financial sense for a much longer period.
The expense gave a sufficient reason for discontinuing it; and it is now, I fear, to be inferred that the venture was one of the first signs of a want of intellectual balance.