IX. THE "PALL MALL GAZETTE"
At this time, however, he joined in another undertaking which for the following five years occupied much of his thoughts. It involved labours so regular and absorbing, that they would have been impossible had his professional employments been equal to his wishes. Towards the end of 1864 he informs Mr. Smith that he cannot continue to be a regular contributor to the "Cornhill Magazine." He observes, however, that if Mr. Smith carries out certain plans then in contemplation, he will be happy to take the opportunity of writing upon matters of a more serious kind. The reference is to the "Pall Mall Gazette," of which the first number appeared on February 7, 1865, upon the opening day of the parliamentary session. The "Pall Mall Gazette" very soon took a place among daily papers similar to that which had been occupied by the "Sat.u.r.day Review" in the weekly press. Many able writers were attached, and especially the great "Jacob Omnium" (Matthew James Higgins), who had a superlative turn for "occasional notes," and "W. R. G." (William Rathbone Greg), who was fond of arguing points from a rather paradoxical point of view. "I like refuting W. R. G.," says Fitzjames, though the "refutations" were on both sides courteous and even friendly.[96] Mr. Frederic Harrison was another antagonist, who always fought in a chivalrous spirit, and on one occasion a controversy between them upon the theory of strikes actually ends by a mutual acceptance of each other"s conclusions. A sharp encounter with "Historicus" of the "Times" shows that old Cambridge encounters had not produced agreement.
Fitzjames was one of the writers to whom Mr. Smith applied at an early stage of the preparatory arrangements. Fitzjames"s previous experience of Mr. Smith"s qualities as a publisher made him a very willing recruit, and he did his best to enlist others in the same service. He began to write in the second number of the paper, and before very long he took the lion"s share of the leading articles. The amount of work, indeed, which he turned out in this capacity, simultaneously with professional work and with some other literary occupations, was so great that these years must, I take it, have been the most laborious in a life of unflagging labour. I give below an account of the number of articles contributed, which will tell the story more forcibly than any general statement. A word or two of explanation will be enough.[97] The "Pall Mall" of those days consisted of a leading article (rarely of two) often running to a much greater length than is now common; of "occasional notes," which were then a comparative novelty; of reviews, and of a few miscellaneous articles. The leading article was a rather more important part of the paper, or at least took up a larger proportion of s.p.a.ce than it does at the present day. Making allowance for Sundays, it will be seen that in 1868 Fitzjames wrote two-thirds of the leaders, nearly half the leaders in 1867, and not much less than half in the three other years (1865, 1866, and 1869). The editor was Mr.
F. Greenwood, who has kindly given me some of his recollections of the time. That Mr. Greenwood esteemed his contributor as a writer is sufficiently obvious from the simple statement of figures: and I may add that they soon formed a very warm friendship which was never interrupted in later years.
I have said that Fitzjames valued his connection with the paper because it enabled him to speak his mind upon many important subjects which had hitherto been forbidden to him. In the "Sat.u.r.day Review" he had been confined to the "middles" and the reviews of books. He never touched political questions; and such utterances as occurred upon ecclesiastical matters were limited by the high church propensities of the proprietor.
In the "Cornhill" he had been bound to keep within the limits prescribed by the tastes of average readers of light literature. In the "Pall Mall Gazette" he was able to speak out with perfect freedom upon all the graver topics of the day. His general plan, when in town, was to write before breakfast, and then to look in at the office of the "Pall Mall Gazette," Northumberland Street, Strand, in the course of his walk to his chambers. There he talked matters over with Mr. Greenwood, and occasionally wrote an article on the spot. When on circuit he still found time to write, and kept up a steady supply of matter. I find him remarking, on one occasion, that he had written five or six leaders in the "Pall Mall Gazette" for the week, besides two "Sat.u.r.day Review"
articles. Everyone who has had experience of journalism knows that the time spent in actual writing is a very inadequate measure of the mental wear and tear due to production. An article may be turned out in an hour or two; but the work takes off the cream of the day, and involves much incidental thought and worry. Fitzjames seemed perfectly insensible to the labour; articles came from him as easily as ordinary talk; the fountain seemed to be always full, and had only to be turned on to the desired end. The chief fault which I should be disposed to find with these articles is doubtless a consequence of this fluency. He has not taken time to make them short. They often resemble the summing-up of a judge, who goes through the evidence on both sides in the order in which it has been presented to him, and then states the "observations which arise" and the "general result" (to use his favourite phrases). A more effective mode of presenting the case might be reached by at once giving the vital point and arranging the facts in a new order of subordination.
The articles, however, had another merit which I take to be exceedingly rare. I have often wondered over the problem, What const.i.tutes the ident.i.ty of a newspaper? I do not mean to ask, though it might be asked, In what sense is the "Pall Mall Gazette" of to-day the same newspaper as the "Pall Mall Gazette" of 1865? but What is meant by the editorial "We"? The inexperienced person is inclined to explain it as a mere grammatical phrase which covers in turn a whole series of contributors.
But any writer in a paper, however free a course may be conceded to him, finds as a fact that the "we" means something very real and potent. As soon as he puts on the mantle, he finds that an indefinable change has come over his whole method of thinking and expressing himself. He is no longer an individual but the mouthpiece of an oracle. He catches some infection of style, and feels that although he may believe what he says, it is not the independent outcome of his own private idiosyncrasy. Now Fitzjames"s articles are specially remarkable for their immunity from this characteristic. When I read them at the time, and I have had the same experience in looking over them again, I recognised his words just as plainly as if I had heard his voice. A signature would to me and to all in the secret have been a superfluity. And, although the general public had not the same means of knowledge, it was equally able to perceive that a large part of the "Pall Mall Gazette" represented the individual convictions of a definite human being, who had, moreover, very strong convictions, and who wrote with the single aim of expressing them as clearly and vigorously as he could. Fitzjames, as I have shown sufficiently, was not of the malleable variety; he did not fit easily into moulds provided by others; but now that his masterful intellect had full play and was allowed to pour out his genuine thought, it gave the impress of individual character to the paper in a degree altogether unusual.
I have one anecdote from Mr. Greenwood which will sufficiently ill.u.s.trate this statement. Lord Palmerston died on October 18, 1865. On October 27 he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Fitzjames came to the "Pall Mall Gazette" office and proposed to write an article upon the occasion. He went for the purpose into a room divided by a thin part.i.tion from that in which Mr. Greenwood sat. Mr. Greenwood unintentionally became aware, in consequence, that the article was composed literally with prayer and with tears. No one who turns to it will be surprised at the statement. He begins by saying that we are paying honour to a man for a patriotic high spirit which enabled him to take a conspicuous part in building up the great fabric of the British Empire. But he was also--as all who were taking part in the ceremony believed in their hearts--a "man of the world" and "a man of pleasure."
Do we, then, disbelieve in our own creed, or are we engaged in a solemn mockery? Palmerston had not obeyed the conditions under which alone, as every preacher will tell us, heaven can be hoped for. Patriotism, good nature, and so forth are, as we are told, mere "filthy rags" of no avail in the sight of heaven. If this belief be genuine, the service must be a mockery. But he fully believes that it is not genuine. The preachers are inconsistent, but it is an honourable inconsistency. If good and evil be not empty labels of insincere flattery, it is "right, meet, and our bounden duty" to do what is being done even now--to kneel beside the "great, good, and simple man whom we all deplore," and to thank G.o.d that it has pleased Him to remove our brother "out of the miseries of this sinful world."
"Our miserable technical rules reach but a little way into the mystery"
which "dimly foreshadows that whatever we with our small capacities have been able to love and honour, G.o.d, who is infinitely wiser, juster, and more powerful, will love and honour too, and that whatever we have been compelled to blame, G.o.d, who is too pure to endure unrighteousness, will deal with, not revengefully or capriciously, but justly and with a righteous purpose. Whatever else we believe, it is the cardinal doctrine of all belief worth having that the Judge of all the earth will do right; that His justice is confined to no rules; that His mercy is over all the earth; and that revenge, caprice, and cruelty can have no place in His punishments."
Few leading articles, I take it, have been written under such conditions or in such a spirit. The reader must have felt himself face to face with a real man, profoundly moved by genuine thoughts and troubled as only the most able and honest men are troubled, by the contrast between our accustomed commonplaces and our real beliefs. Most of his articles are written in a strain of solid and generally calm common sense; and some, no doubt, must have been of the kind compared by his father to singing without inflated lungs--mere pieces of routine taskwork. Yet, as I have already shown, by his allegory of the ship, there was always a strong vein of intense feeling upon certain subjects, restrained as a rule by his dislike to unveiling his heart too freely and yet making itself perceptible in some forcible phrase and in the general temper of mind implied. The great ma.s.s of such work is necessarily of ephemeral interest; and it is painful to turn over the old pages and observe what a mould of antiquity seems to have spread over controversies so exciting only thirty years ago. We have gone far in the interval; though it is well to remember that we too shall soon be out of date, and our most modern doctrines lose the bloom of novelty. There are, however, certain lights in which even the most venerable discussions preserve all their freshness. Without attempting any minute details, I will endeavour to indicate the points characteristic of my brother"s development.
There was one doctrine which he expounds in many connections, and which had a very deep root in his character. It appears, for example, in his choice of a profession; decided mainly by the comparison between the secular and the spiritual man. The problem suggested to him by Lord Palmerston shows another application of the same mode of thought. What is the true relation between the Church and the world; or between the monastic and ascetic view of life represented by Newman and the view of the lawyer or man of business? To him, as I have said, G.o.d seemed to be more palpably present in a court of justice than in a monastery; and this was not a mere epigram expressive of a transitory mood. Various occurrences of the day led him to apply his views to questions connected with the Established Church. After the "Essays and Reviews" had ceased to be exciting there were some eager discussions about Colenso, and his relations as Bishop of Natal to the Bishop of Capetown. Controversies between liberal Catholics and Ultramontanes raised the same question under different aspects, and Fitzjames frequently finds texts upon which to preach his favourite sermon. It may be said, I think, that there are three main lines of opinion. In the first place, there was the view of the liberationists and their like. The ideal is a free Church in a free State. Each has its own sphere, and, as Macaulay puts it in his famous essay upon Mr. Gladstone"s early book, the State has no more to do with the religious opinions of its subjects than the North-Western Railway with the religious opinions of its shareholders. This, represented a view to which Fitzjames felt the strongest antipathy. It a.s.sumed, he thought, a radically false notion, the possibility of dividing human life into two parts, religious and secular; whereas in point of fact the State is as closely interested as the Church in the morality of its members, and therefore in the religion which determines the morality.
The State can only keep apart permanently from religious questions by resigning all share in the most profoundly important and interesting problems of life. To accept this principle would therefore be to degrade the State to a mere commercial concern, and it was just for that reason that its acceptance was natural to the ordinary radical who reflected the prejudices of the petty trader. A State which deserves the name has to adopt morality of one kind or another, in its criminal legislation, in its whole national policy, in its relation to education, and more or less in every great department of life. In his view, therefore, the ordinary cry for disestablishment was not the recognition of a tenable and consistent principle, but an attempt to arrange a temporary compromise which could only work under special conditions, and must break up whenever men"s minds were really stirred. However reluctant they may be, they will have to answer the question, Is this religion true or not? and to regulate their affairs accordingly. He often expresses a conviction that we are all in fact on the eve of such a controversy, which must stir the whole of society to its base.
We have, then, to choose between two other views. The doctrine of sovereignty expounded by Austin, and derived from his favourite philosopher Hobbes, enabled him to put the point in his own dialect. The difference between Church and State, he said, is not a difference of spheres, but a difference of sanctions. Their commands have the same subject matter: but the priest says, "Do this or be d.a.m.ned"; the lawyer, "Do this or be hanged." Hence the complete separation is a mere dream.
Since both bodies deal with the same facts, there must be an ultimate authority. The only question is which? Will you obey the Pope or the Emperor, the power which claims the keys of another life or the power which wields the sword in this. So far he agrees with the Ultramontanes as against the liberal Catholics. But, though the Ultramontanes put the issue rightly, his answer is diametrically opposite. He follows Hobbes and is a thorough-going Erastian. He sympathised to some degree with the doctrine of Coleridge and Dr. Arnold. They regarded the Church and the State as in a sense identical; as the same body viewed under different aspects. Fitzjames held also that State and Church should be identical; but rather in the form that State and Church were to be one and that one the State. For this there were two good reasons. In the first place, the claims of the Church to supernatural authority were altogether baseless.
To bow to those claims was to become slaves of priests and to accept superst.i.tions. And, in the next place, this is no mere accident. The division between the priest and layman corresponds to his division between his "sentimentalist" and his "stern, cold man of common sense."
Now the priest may very well supply the enthusiasm, but the task of legislation is one which demands the cool, solid judgment of the layman.
He insists upon this, for example, in noticing Professor Seeley"s description of the "Enthusiasm of Humanity" in "Ecce h.o.m.o." Such a spirit, he urges, may supply the motive power, but the essence of the legislative power is to restrict and constrain, and that is the work not of the enthusiast, but of the man of business. During this period he seems to have had some hopes that his principles might be applied. The lawyers had prevented the clergy from expelling each section of the Church in turn: and the decision in the "Essays and Reviews" cases had settled that free-thinking should have its representatives among ecclesiastical authorities. At one period he even suggests that, if an article or two were added to the thirty-nine, some change made in the ordination service, and a relaxation granted in the terms of subscription, the Church might be protected from sacerdotalism; and, though some of the clergy might secede to Rome, the Church of England might be preserved as virtually the religious department of the State.
He soon saw that any realisation of such views was hopeless. He writes from India in 1870 to a friend, whom he had advised upon a prosecution for heresy, saying that he saw clearly that we were drifting towards voluntaryism. Any other solution was for the present out of the question; although he continued to regard this as a makeshift compound, and never ceased to object to disestablishment.
Fitzjames"s political views show the same tendencies. He had not hitherto taken any active interest in politics, taken in the narrower sense. Our friend Henry Fawcett, with whom he had many talks on his Christmas visits to Trinity Hall, was rather scandalised by my brother"s att.i.tude of detachment in regard to the party questions of the day.
Fitzjames stood for Harwich in the Liberal interest at the general election of 1865; but much more because he thought that a seat in Parliament would be useful in his profession than from any keen interest in politics. The Harwich electors in those days did not, I think, take much interest themselves in political principles. Both they and he, however, seemed dimly to perceive that he was rather out of his element, and the whole affair, which ended in failure, was of the comic order.
His indifference and want of familiarity with the small talk of politics probably diminished the effect of his articles in so far as it implied a tendency to fall back upon principles too general for the average reader. But there was no want of decided convictions. The death of Palmerston marked the end of the old era, and was soon succeeded by the discussions over parliamentary reform which led to Disraeli"s measure of 1867. Fitzjames considered himself to be a Liberal, but the Liberals of those days were divided into various sections, not fully conscious of the differences which divided them. In one of his "Cornhill"
articles[98] Fitzjames had attempted to define what he meant by liberalism. It meant, he said, hostility to antiquated and narrow-minded inst.i.tutions. It ought also to mean "generous and high-minded sentiments upon political subjects guided by a highly instructed, large-minded and impartial intellect, briefly the opposite of sordidness, vulgarity, and bigotry." The party technically called Liberal were about to admit a larger popular element to a share of political power. The result would be good or bad as the new rulers acted or did not act in the spirit properly called Liberal. Unluckily the flattery of the working-man has come into fashion; we ignore his necessary limitations, and we deify the "casual opinions and ineffectual public sentiments" of the half-educated. "The great characteristic danger of our days is the growth of a quiet, ign.o.ble littleness of character and spirit." We should aim, therefore, at impressing our new masters "with a lofty notion not merely of the splendour of the history of their country, but of the part which it has to play in the world, and of the spirit in which it should be played." He gives as an example a topic to which he constantly turns. The "whole fabric" of the Indian Empire, he says, is a monument of energy, "skill and courage, and, on the whole, of justice and energy, such as the world never saw before." How are we to deal with that great inheritance bequeathed to us by the courage of heroes and the wisdom of statesmen? India is but one instance. There is hardly an inst.i.tution in the country which may not be renewed if we catch the spirit which presided over its formation. Liberals have now to be authors instead of critics, and their solution of such problems will decide whether their success is to be a curse or a blessing.
This gives the keynote of his writings in the "Pall Mall Gazette." He frankly recognises the necessity, and therefore does not discuss the advisability, of a large extension of the franchise. He protests only against the view, which he attributes to Bright, that the new voters are to enter as victors storming the fortress of old oppressors, holding that they should be rather cordially invited to take their place in a stately mansion upheld for eight centuries by their ancestors. When people are once admitted, however, the pretext for admission is of little importance. Fitzjames gradually comes to have his doubts. There is, he says, a liberalism of the intellect and a liberalism of sentiment. The intellectual liberal is called a "cold-hearted doctrinaire" because he asks only whether a theory be true or false; and because he wishes for statesmanlike reforms of the Church, the educational system, and the law, even though the ten-pound householder may be indifferent to them. But the sentimental liberal thought only of such measures as would come home to the ten-pound householder; and apparently this kind of liberal was getting the best of it. The various party manoeuvres which culminated in the Reform Bill begin to excite his contempt. He is vexed by the many weaknesses of party government.
The war of 1866 suggests reflections upon the military weakness of England, and upon the inability of our statesmen to attend to any object which has no effect upon votes. The behaviour of the Conservative Government in the case of the Hyde Park riots of the same year excites his hearty contempt. He is in favour of the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and lays down substantially the principles embodied in Mr. Gladstone"s measure. But he sympathises more and more with Carlyle"s view of our blessed const.i.tution. We have the weakest and least permanent government that ever ruled a great empire, and it seems to be totally incapable of ever undertaking any of the great measures which require foresight and statesmanship. He compares in this connection the construction of legal codes in India with our inability to make use of a great legal reformer, such as Lord Westbury, when we happen to get him.
Sentiments of this kind seem to grow upon him, although they are not expressed with bitterness or many personal applications. It is enough to say that his antipathy to sentimentalism, and to the want of high patriotic spirit in the Manchester school of politics, blends with a rather contemptuous att.i.tude towards the parliamentary system. It reveals itself to him, now that he is forced to become a critic, as a petty game of wire-pulling and of pandering to shallow popular prejudices of which he is beginning to grow impatient.
I may finish the account of his literary activity at this time by saying that he was still contributing occasional articles to "Fraser" and to the "Sat.u.r.day Review." The "Sat.u.r.day Review" articles were part of a scheme which he took up about 1864. It occurred to him that he would be employing himself more profitably by writing a series of articles upon old authors than by continuing to review the literature of the day. He might thus put together a kind of general course of literature. He wrote accordingly a series of articles which involved a great amount of reading as he went through the works of some voluminous authors. They were published as "Horae Sabbaticae" in 1892, in three volumes, without any serious revision. It is unnecessary to dwell upon them at any length. It would be unfair to treat them as literary criticism, for which he cared as little as it deserves. He was very fond, indeed, of Sainte-Beuve, but almost as much for the information as for the criticism contained in the "Causeries." He had always a fancy for such books as Gibbon"s great work which give a wide panoramic view of history, and defended his taste on principle. These articles deal with some historical books which interested him, but are chiefly concerned with French and English writers from Hooker to Paley and from Pascal to De Maistre, who dealt with his favourite philosophical problems. Their peculiarity is that the writer has read his authors pretty much as if he were reading an argument in a contemporary magazine. He gives his view of the intrinsic merits of the logic with little allowance for the historical position of the author. He has not made any study of the general history of philosophy, and has not troubled himself to compare his impressions with those of other critics. The consequence is that there are some very palpable misconceptions and failure to appreciate the true relation to contemporary literature of the books criticised. I can only say, therefore, that they will be interesting to readers who like to see the impression made upon a masculine though not specially prepared mind by the perusal of certain famous books, and who relish an independent verdict expressed in downright terms without care for the conventional opinion of professional critics.
His thoughts naturally turned a good deal to various projects connected with his writing. In July 1867 he writes that he has resolved to concentrate himself chiefly upon the "Pall Mall Gazette" for the present. He is, however, to complete some schemes already begun. The "Fraser" articles upon religious topics will make one book; then there are the "Horae Sabbaticae" articles, of which he has already written fifty-eight, and which will be finished in about twenty more. But, besides this, he has five law-books in his mind, including a rewriting of the book on criminal law and a completion of the old book upon the administrative history. Others are to deal with martial law, insanity, and the relations of England to India and the colonies. Beyond these he looks at an "awful distance" upon a great book upon law and morals. He is beginning to doubt whether literature would not be more congenial than law, if he could obtain some kind of permanent independent position. Law, no doubt, has given him a good training, but the pettiness of most of the business can hardly be exaggerated; and he hardly feels inclined to make it the great aim of his life. He had, however, risen to a distinctly higher position on his circuit; and just at this time he was engaged in one of the cases which, as usual, brought more in the way of glory than of gain.
X. GOVERNOR EYRE
The troubles in Jamaica had taken place in October 1865. The severity of the repressive measures excited indignation in England; and discussions arose conducted with a bitterness not often paralleled. The Gordon case was the chief topic of controversy. Governor Eyre had arrested Gordon, whom he considered to be the mainspring of the insurrection, and sent him to the district in which martial law had been proclaimed. There he was tried by a court-martial ordered by General Nelson, and speedily hanged. The controversy which followed is a curious ill.u.s.tration of the modes of reasoning of philosophers and statesmen. n.o.body could deny the general proposition that the authorities are bound to take energetic measures to prevent the horrors of a servile insurrection. Nor could anyone deny that they are equally bound to avoid the needless severities which the fear of such horrors is likely to produce. Which principle should apply was a question of fact; but in practice the facts were taken for granted. One party a.s.sumed unanimously that Governor Eyre had been doing no more than his duty; and the other, with equal confidence, a.s.sumed that he was guilty of extreme severity. A commission, consisting of Sir Henry Storks, Mr. Russell Gurney, and Mr. Maule, the recorder of Leeds, was sent out at the end of 1865 to inquire into the facts.
Meanwhile the Jamaica Committee was formed, of which J. S. Mill was chairman, with Mr. P. A. Taylor, the Radical leader, as vice-chairman.[99] The committee (in January 1866) took the opinions of Fitzjames and Mr. Edward James as to the proper mode of invoking the law. Fitzjames drew the opinion, which was signed by Mr. James and himself.[100] After the report of the Commission (April 1866), which showed that excesses had been committed, the committee acted upon this opinion.
From Fitzjames"s letters written at the time, I find that his study of the papers published by the Commission convinced him that Governor Eyre had gone beyond the proper limits in his behaviour towards Gordon. The governor, he thought, had been guilty of an "outrageous stretch of power," and had hanged Gordon, not because it was necessary to keep the peace, but because it seemed to be expedient on general political grounds. This was what the law called murder, whatever the propriety of the name. Fitzjames made an application in January 1867 before Sir Thomas Henry, the magistrate at Bow Street, to commit for trial the officers responsible for the court-martial proceedings (General Nelson and Lieutenant Brand) on the charge of murder. In March he appeared before the justices at Market Drayton, in Shropshire, to make a similar application in the case of Governor Eyre. He was opposed by Mr. (the late Lord) Hannen at Bow Street, and by Mr. Giffard (now Lord Halsbury) at Market Drayton. The country magistrates dismissed the case at once; but Sir Thomas Henry committed Nelson and Brand for trial. Mr.
Lushington tells me that Sir Thomas Henry often spoke to him with great admiration of Fitzjames"s powerful argument on the occasion. On April 10, 1867, the trial of Nelson and Brand came on at the Old Bailey, when Chief Justice c.o.c.kburn delivered an elaborate charge, taking substantially the view of the law already expounded by Fitzjames. The grand jury, however, threw out the bill.
The law, as understood by Fitzjames, comes, I think, substantially to this. The so-called "martial law" is simply an application of the power given by the common law to put down actual insurrection by force. The officers who employ force are responsible for any excessive cruelty, and are not justified in using it after resistance is suppressed, or the ordinary courts reopened. The so-called courts-martial are not properly courts at all, but simply committees for carrying out the measures adopted on the responsibility of the officials; and the proclamation is merely a public notice that such measures will be employed.
It is clear from Fitzjames"s speeches that he felt much sympathy for the persons who had been placed in a position of singular difficulty, and found it hard to draw the line between energetic defence of order and over-severity to the rebels. He explains very carefully that he is not concerned with the moral question, and contends only that the legal name for their conduct is murder. In fact, he paid compliments to the accused which would be very inappropriate to the cla.s.s of murderers in the ordinary sense of the term. The counsel on the opposite side naturally took advantage of this, and described his remarks as a "ghastly show of compliment." It must be awkward to say that a man is legally a murderer when you evidently mean only he has lost his head and gone too far under exceedingly trying circ.u.mstances. The Jamaica Committee did not admit of any such distinction. To them Governor Eyre appeared to be morally as well as legally guilty of murder. Fitzjames appears to have felt that the attempt to proceed further would look like a vindictive persecution; and he ceased after this to take part in the case. He congratulated himself upon this withdrawal when further proceedings (in 1868) led to abortive results.
One result was a coolness between my brother and J. S. Mill, who was displeased by his want of sufficient zeal in the matter. They had been on friendly terms, and I remember once visiting Mill at Blackheath in my brother"s company. There was never, I think, any cordial relation between them. Fitzjames was a disciple of Mill in philosophical matters, and in some ways even, as I hold, pushed Mill"s views to excess. He complains more than once at this time that Carlyle was unjust to the Utilitarian views, which, in his opinion, represented the true line of advance. But Carlyle was far more agreeable to him personally. The reason was, I take it, that Carlyle had what Mill had not, an unusual allowance of the quality described as "human nature." Mill undoubtedly was a man of even feminine tenderness in his way; but in political and moral matters he represented the tendency to be content with the abstractions of the unpractical man. He seemed to Fitzjames at least to dwell in a region where the great pa.s.sions and forces which really stir mankind are neglected or treated as mere accidental disturbances of the right theory. Mill seemed to him not so much cold-blooded as bloodless, wanting in the fire and force of the full-grown male animal, and comparable to a superlatively crammed senior wrangler, whose body has been stunted by his brains. Fitzjames could only make a real friend of a man in whom he could recognise the capacity for masculine emotions as well as logical acuteness, and rightly or wrongly Mill appeared to him to be too much of a calculating machine and too little of a human being.
This will appear more clearly hereafter.
XI. INDIAN APPOINTMENT
In the meantime Fitzjames was obtaining, as usual, some occasional spurts of practice at the bar, while the steady gale still refused to blow. He had an influx of parliamentary business, which, for whatever reason, did not last long. He had some arbitration cases of some importance, and he was employed in a patent case in which he took considerable interest. He found himself better able than he had expected to take in mechanical principles, and thought that he was at last getting something out of his Cambridge education. Mr. Chamberlain has kindly sent me his recollections of this case. "I first made the acquaintance of Sir J. F. Stephen" (he writes) "in connection with a very important and complicated arbitration in which the firm of Nettlefold & Chamberlain, of which I was then a partner, was engaged.
Sir James led for us in this case, which lasted nearly twelve months, and he had as junior the late Lord Bowen. The arbitrator was the present Baron Pollock, a.s.sisted by Mr. Hick, M.P., the head of a great engineering firm. From the first I was struck with Sir James Stephen"s extraordinary grasp of a most complicated subject, involving as it did the validity of a patent and comparison of most intricate machinery, as well as investigation of most elaborate accounts. He insisted on making himself personally acquainted with all the processes of manufacture, and his final speech on the case was a most masterly summary of all the facts and arguments. In dealing with hostile witnesses he was always firm but courteous, never taking unfair advantage or attempting to confuse, but solely anxious to arrive at the truth. He was a tremendous worker, rising very early in the morning, and occupying every spare moment of his time. I remember frequently seeing him in moments of leisure at work on the proofs of the articles which he was then writing for the "Pall Mall Gazette." In private he was a most charming companion, full of the most varied information and with a keen sense of humour. Our business relations led to a private friendship, which lasted until his death." In 1868 he took silk, for which he had applied unsuccessfully two years before. In the autumn of the same year he sat for the first time in the place of one of the judges at Leeds, and had the pleasure of being "my Lord," and trying criminals. "It appears to me," he says, "to be the very easiest work that ever I did." The general election at the end of 1868 brought him some work in the course of the following year. He was counsel in several election pet.i.tions, and found the work contemptible. "It would be wearisome," he says, "to pa.s.s one"s life in a round of such things, even if one were paid 100_l._ a day."
Advocacy in general is hardly a satisfactory calling for a being with an immortal soul, and perhaps a mortal soul would have still less excuse for wasting its time. The view of the ugly side of politics is disgusting, and he acknowledges a "restless ambition" prompting him to look to some more permanent results.
These reflections were partly suggested by a new turn of affairs. I have incidentally quoted more than one phrase showing how powerfully his imagination had been impressed by the Indian Empire. He says in his last book[101] that in his boyhood Macaulay"s "Essays" had been his favourite book. He had admired their manly sense, their "freedom from every sort of mysticism," their "sympathy with all that is good and honourable." He came to know him almost by heart, and in particular the essays upon Clive and Warren Hastings gave him a feeling about India like that which other boys have derived about the sea from Marryat"s novels. The impression, he says, was made "over forty years ago," that is, by 1843.
In fact the Indian Empire becomes his staple ill.u.s.tration whenever he is moved to an expression of the strong patriotic sentiment, which is very rarely far from his mind. He speaks in 1865 of recurring to an "old plan" for writing a book about India. I remember that he suggested to me about that date that I should take up such a scheme, and was a good deal amused by my indignation at the proposal. James Mill, he argued, had been equally without the local knowledge which I declared to be necessary to a self-respecting author. Several circ.u.mstances had strengthened the feeling. His friend Maine had gone to India in 1862 as legal Member of Council, and was engaged upon that work of codification to which he refers admiringly in the "View of the Criminal Law." In November 1866 Fitzjames"s brother-in-law, Henry Cunningham, went to India, where he was appointed public prosecutor in the Punjab. His sister, then Miss Emily Cunningham, joined him there. Their transplantation caused a very important part of Fitzjames"s moorings (if I may say so) to be fixed in India. It became probable that he might be appointed Maine"s successor. In 1868 this was suggested to him by Maine himself, when he regarded it on the whole unfavourably; but during 1869 the question came to need an answer. Against accepting the post was the risk to his professional prospects. Although not so brilliant as could be wished, they presented several favourable appearances; and he often hoped that he was at last emerging definitely from his precarious position. His opinion varied a little with the good or bad fortune of successive circuits. He felt that he might be sacrificing the interests of his family to his own ambition. The domestic difficulty was considerable. He had at this time seven children; and the necessity of breaking up the family would be especially hard upon his wife. Upon the other hand was the desire for a more satisfying sphere of action. "I have been having a very melancholy time this circuit" (he writes to Miss Cunningham, March 17, 1869). "I am thoroughly and grievously out of spirits about these plans of ours. On the whole I incline towards them; but they not unfrequently seem to me cruel to Mary, cruel to the children, undutiful to my mother, Quixotic and rash and impatient as regards myself and my own prospects.... I have not had a really cheerful and easy day for weeks past, and I have got to feel at last almost beaten by it." He goes on to tell how he has been chaffed with the characteristic freedom of barristers for his consequent silence at mess. It is "thoroughly weak-minded of me," he adds, but he will find a "pretty straight road through it in one direction or another." Gradually the attractions of India became stronger. "It would be foolish," he says, "when things are looking well on circuit, to leave a really flourishing business to gratify a taste, though I must own that my own views and Henry Cunningham"s letters give me almost a missionary feeling about the country." He reads books upon the subject and his impression deepens. India, he declares, seems to him to be "legally, morally, politically, and religiously nearly the most curious thing in the world." At last, on May 11, while he is attending a "thoroughly repulsive and disgusting" trial of an election pet.i.tion at Stafford, he becomes sick of his indecision. He resolves to take a two hours" walk and make up his mind before returning. He comes back from his walk clear that it is "the part of a wise and brave man" to accept such a chance when it comes in his way. Next day he writes to Grant Duff, then Indian Under-Secretary, stating his willingness to accept the appointment if offered to him. He was accordingly appointed on July 2. A fortnight later the Chief Justiceship of Calcutta, vacant by the resignation of Sir Barnes Peac.o.c.k, was offered to him; but he preferred to retain his previous appointment, which gave him precisely the kind of work in which he was most interested.
He was pleased to recollect that the post on its first creation had been offered to his father. Among his earliest memories were those of the talks about India which took place at Kensington Gore on that occasion, when Macaulay strongly advised my father to take the post of which he soon became himself the first occupant. Fitzjames spent the summer at a house called Drumquinna on the Kenmare river. Froude was his neighbour at Dereen on the opposite bank, and they saw much of each other. In November, after various leave-takings and the reception of a farewell address on resigning the recordership of Newark, he set out for India, his wife remaining for the present in England.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 63: "Bars of France and England," _Cornhill Magazine_, p. 681, August 1864.]
[Footnote 64: He died June 22, 1861.]
[Footnote 65: May 16, 1857.]
[Footnote 66: I see from a contemporary note that Fitzjames attributes an article upon Goethe in one of the first numbers to "Froude, who wrote the _Nemesis of Faith_"; but this appears to be only his conjecture.]
[Footnote 67: I believe also that for many years he wrote the annual summary of events in the _Times_.]
[Footnote 68: A list was preserved by Fitzjames of his contributions to the _Sat.u.r.day Review_ and other periodicals of his time, which enables me to speak of his share with certainty.]
[Footnote 69: December 19, 1857.]
[Footnote 70: See e.g. _Sat.u.r.day Review_, January 3 and July 11, 1857, "Mr. d.i.c.kens as a Politician," and "The _Sat.u.r.day Review_ and Light Literature."]
[Footnote 71: October 17, 1857.]
[Footnote 72: Mr. Rogers"s _Reminiscences_ (1888), 129-156, gives a full and interesting account of this commission.]
[Footnote 73: P. 130.]
[Footnote 74: Captain Parker Snow has sent me the correspondence and some other doc.u.ments. An account of his remarkable career will be found in the _Review of Reviews_ for April 1893. The case is reported in the _Times_ of December 8, 1859.]
[Footnote 75: _Liberty, Equality, Fraternity._]