CHAPTER V.DEGREE.

[11]“Dead noser,” the Tyne phrase for a wind in your teeth.

[12]The Bishops were famous oarsmen. Dr. Macdougal rowed bow oar in Menzies’ boat, and was a dear friend of my brother’s.

[13]Query: Do Bishops wear “chasubles?”—G.E.H. [Note appended by my brother to the original copy.]

The Schools were now very near ahead of him, and, though not much behindhand with his work, considering the intensity of his exertions in other directions, he was anxious to make the most of the months that were left. He read very hard in vacation, but, when term began again, had to encounter unusual difficulties. His father’s half-hinted warnings against a large acquaintance proved prophetic. In fact, I used to wonder how he ever got his reading done at all, and was often not a little annoyed with many of my own contemporaries, and other younger men still, even to the last batch of freshmen, whose fondness for his society was untempered by any thought of examinations, or honours. Not one of them could give a wine, or a breakfast party, without him, and his good-nature kept him from refusing when he found that his presence gave real pleasure. Then he never had the heart to turn them out of his rooms, or keep his oak habitually sported; and when that most necessary ceremonyfor a reading man had been performed, it was not respected as it should have been. My rooms were on the same staircase, half a flight below his (which looked into the quadrangle, while mine looked out over the back of the College), so that I could hear all that happened. Our College lectures were all over at one. It was well for him if he had secured quiet up to that hour; but, in any case, regularly within a few minutes after the clock had struck, I used to hear steps on the stairs, and a pause before his oak. If it was sported, kicking or knocking would follow, with imploring appeals, “Now, old ’un” (the term of endearment by which he went in College), “do open—I know you’re in—only for two minutes.” A short persistence seldom failed; and soon other men followed on the same errand, “for a few minutes only,” till it was time for lunch, to which he would then be dragged off in one of their rooms, and his oak never get sported again till late at night. Up to his last term in College this went on, though not to quite the same extent; and even then there was one incorrigible young idler, who never failed in his “open sesame,” and wasted more of my brother’s time than all the rest of the College. But who could be angry with him? He was one of the smallest and most delicate men I ever saw, weighing about 8st. l0lb., a capital rider, and as brave as a lion, though we always called him “the Mouse.” Full of mother wit, but utterly uncultivated,it was a perfect marvel how he ever matriculated, and his answers, and attempts at construing, in lecture were fabulous—full of good impulse, but fickle as the wind; reckless, spendthrift, fast, in constant trouble with tradesmen, proctors, and the College authorities. But no tradesman, when it came to the point, had the heart to “court,” or proctor to rusticate him; and the Dean, though constantly in wrath at his misdeeds, never got beyond warnings, and “gating.” So he held on, until his utter, repeated, and hopeless failure to pass his “smalls,” brought his college career to its inevitable end. Unfortunately for my brother’s reading, that career coincided with his third year, and his society had an extraordinary fascination for the Mouse. The perfect contrast between them, in mind and body, may probably account for this; but I think the little man had also a sort of longing to be decent and respectable, and, in the midst of his wildest scrapes, felt that his intimacy with the best oar and cricketer in the College, who was also on good terms with the Dons, and paid his bills, and could write Greek verses, kept him in touch with the better life of the place, and was a constant witness to himself of his intention to amend, some day. They had one taste in common, however, which largely accounted for my brother’s undoubted affection for the little “ne’er do weel,” a passion for animals. The Mouse kept two terriers, who were to him as children, lying in his bosom by night, and eating from his plate by day.Dogs were strictly forbidden in College, and the vigilance of the porter was proof against all the other pets. But the Mouse’s terriers defied it. From living on such intimate terms with their master, they had become as sharp as undergraduates. They were never seen about the quadrangles in the day-time, and knew the sound and sight of dean, tutor, and porter, better than any freshman. When the Mouse went out of College, they would stay behind on the staircase till they were sure he must be fairly out in the street, and then scamper across the two quadrangles, and out of the gate, as if their lives depended on the pace. In the same way, on returning, they would repeat the process, after first looking cautiously in at the gate to see that the porter was safe in his den. But after dusk they were at their ease at once, and would fearlessly trot over the forbidden grass of the inner quad, or sit at the Provost’s door, or on the Hall steps, and romp with anybody not in a master’s gown. So, even when his master’s knock remained unanswered, Crib’s or Jet’s beseeching whine and scratch would always bring my brother to the door. He could not resist dogs, or children.

I have always laid my brother’s loss of his first class at the door of his young friends, but chiefly on the Mouse, for that little man’s delinquencies culminated in the most critical moment of the Schools. The Saturday before paper work began he had seduced George out foran evening stroll with him, and of course took him through a part of the town which was famous for town-and-gown rows. Here, a baker carrying a tray shouldered the Mouse into the gutter. The Mouse thereupon knocked the baker’s tray off his head. The baker knocked the little man over, and my brother floored the baker, who sat in the mud, and howled “Gown, gown.” In two minutes a mob was on them, and they had to retreat fighting, which, owing to the reckless pugnacity of his small comrade, was an operation that tried all my brother’s coolness and strength to the utmost. By the help, however, of Crib, who created timely diversions by attacking the heels of the town at critical moments, he succeeded in bringing the Mouse home, capless, with his gown in shreds, and his nose and mouth bleeding, but otherwise unhurt, at the cost to himself of a bad black-eye. The undergraduate remedies of leeches, raw beef-steak, and paint were diligently applied during the next thirty-six hours, but with very partial success; and he had to appear in white tie and bands before the Examiners, on the Monday morning, with decided marks of battle on his face. In the evening, he wrote home:—

“My dear Father,“The first day of paper work is over; I am sorry to say that I have not satisfied myself at all. Although logic was my strongest point as I thought, yet through nervousness, or some other cause, I acquitted myself in a very slovenlymanner; and I feel nervous and down-hearted about the remainder of the work, because I know that I am not so strong on those points as I was in logic. I feel inclined myself to put off my degree, but I should like to know what you think about it; I could certainly get through, but I do not think I should do myself any credit, and I am sure I should not satisfy myself. I shall continue at the paper work till I hear from you. I should be very willing to give up any plans which I have formed for the vacation, and read quietly at home; and I am sure I could put the affair beyond a doubt with a little more reading. But if you think I had better get rid of it at once, I will continue. I am in very good health, only, as I tell you, nervous and out of spirits.“Yours affectionately,“G. E. Hughes.”

“My dear Father,

“The first day of paper work is over; I am sorry to say that I have not satisfied myself at all. Although logic was my strongest point as I thought, yet through nervousness, or some other cause, I acquitted myself in a very slovenlymanner; and I feel nervous and down-hearted about the remainder of the work, because I know that I am not so strong on those points as I was in logic. I feel inclined myself to put off my degree, but I should like to know what you think about it; I could certainly get through, but I do not think I should do myself any credit, and I am sure I should not satisfy myself. I shall continue at the paper work till I hear from you. I should be very willing to give up any plans which I have formed for the vacation, and read quietly at home; and I am sure I could put the affair beyond a doubt with a little more reading. But if you think I had better get rid of it at once, I will continue. I am in very good health, only, as I tell you, nervous and out of spirits.

“Yours affectionately,

“G. E. Hughes.”

His nervousness was out of place, as I ascertained afterwards from his tutor, that the Examiners were very much pleased with his paper work. Indeed, I think that he himself soon got over his nervousness, and was well satisfied with his prospects when his turn came forvivâ voceexamination. I was foolish enough to choose the same day for sitting in the Schools, a ceremony one had to perform in the year preceding one’s own examination. It involved attendance during the whole day, listening to the attack of the four experts in row at the long table, on the intellectual works of the single unfortunate, who sat facing them on the other side. This, when the victim happens to be your brother, is a severe and needless trial of nerves and patience.

For some time, however, I was quite happy, as George construed his Greek plays capitally, and had his Aristotle at his finger ends. He was then handed on to the third Examiner, who opened Livy and put him on somewhere in the bewildering Samnite wars, and, when he had construed, closed the book as if satisfied, just putting him a casual question as to the end of the campaign, and its effect on home politics at Rome. No answer, for George was far too downright to attempt a shot; and, as he told me afterwards, had not looked at this part of his Livy for more than a year. Of course other questions followed, and then a searching examination in this part of the history, which showed that my brother knew his Arnold’s Rome well enough, but had probably taken up his Livy on trust, which was very nearly the truth. I never passed a more unpleasant hour, for I happened to be up in this part of Livy, and, if the theories of Mesmerism were sound, should certainly have been able to inspire him with the answers. As it was, I was on the rack all the time, and left the Schools in a doleful state of mind. I felt sure that he must lose his first class, and told the group of our men so, who gathered in the Schools quadrangle to see the Honours list posted. The Mouse, on the other hand, swore roundly that he was certain of his first, offering to back his opinion to any amount. I did not bet, but proved to be right. His name came out in the second class, there being only five in the first; and wewalked back to Oriel a disconsolate band; the Mouse, I really believe, being more cast down than any of the party. I never told him that in my opinion he was himself not a little responsible.

He was obliged to take his own name off the books shortly afterwards, and started for the Cape, leaving Crib and Jet, the only valuable possession I imagine that he had in the world, to my brother. They were lovingly tended to a good old age. Their old master joined the Mounted Rifles, in which corps (we heard at second hand, for he never wrote a letter) he fully maintained his character for fine riding and general recklessness, till he broke down altogether, and died some two years later. It is a sad little history, which carries its own moral.

My brother, after taking his degree, remained up at Oxford in lodgings, attending lectures; and, when I went out of College in the term before my own examination, I joined him, and once again we found ourselves living in a common sitting room. I think it was a very great pleasure to both of us; and as soon as my troubles in the Schools were over, and the short leisure time which generally follows that event had set in, we began to talk over subjects which had hitherto been scarcely mentioned between us, but which, on the threshold of active life, were becoming of absorbing interest. In the previous autumn I had made a tour with a pupil in the North of England and Scotland. I had gone, by choice, to commercial hotels in several of the large northern towns, as I had discovered that commercial rooms were the most likely places for political discussion, and was anxious to talk over the great question of that day with the very vigorous and able gentlemen who frequented them. The Anti-Corn-Law agitation was then at its height,and, to cut a long story short, I had come back from the North an ardent Freetrader. In other directions also I was rapidly falling away from the political faith in which we had been brought up. I am not conscious, indeed I do not believe, that Arnold’s influence was ever brought to bear directly on English politics, in the case even of those boys who (like my brother and myself) came specially under it, in his own house, and in the sixth form. What he did for us was, to make us think on the politics of Israel, and Rome, and Greece, leaving us free to apply the lessons he taught us in these, as best we could, to our own country. But now his life had been published, and had come like a revelation to many of us; explaining so much that had appeared inexplicable, and throwing a white light upon great sections, both of the world which we had realized more or less through the classics, and the world which was lying under our eyes, and all around us, and which we now began, for the first time, to recognize as one and the same.

The noble side of democracy was carrying me away. I was haunted by Arnold’s famous sentence, “If there is one truth short of the highest for which I would gladly die, it is democracy without Jacobinism;” and “the People’s Charter” was beginning to have strange attractions for me.

It was just one of those crises in one’s life in which nothing is so useful, or healthy, for one, as coming into direct and constant contact with an intellect stronger thanone’s own, which looks at the same subjects from a widely different standpoint.

Now, in the Anti-Corn-Law agitation the leaders of the League were in the habit of using very violent language. Their speeches were full of vehement attacks on the landlords and farmers of England, and of pictures of country life as an inert mass of selfishness, tyranny, and stupidity. My brother’s hatred of exaggeration and unfairness revolted against all this wild talk; and his steady appeal to facts known to us both often staggered my new convictions. On the general economical question, imperfectly as I understood it, I think I often staggered him. But, on the other hand, when he appealed to the example of a dozen landlords whom I knew (including your grandfather), and made me look at the actual relations between them and their tenants and their labourers, and ask myself whether these statements were not utterly untrue in their case and in the county we knew; whether they were not probably just as untrue of other counties; and, if that were so, whether a cause which needed such libels to support it could be a just one, I was often in my turn sadly troubled for a reply.

Again, though Arnold’s life influenced him quite as powerfully as it did me, it was in quite a different direction, strengthening specially in him the reverence for national life, and for the laws, traditions, and customs with which it is interwoven, and of which it is the expression. Somehow, his natural dislike to change, and preferencefor the old ways, seemed to gain as much strength and nourishment from the teaching and example of our old master, as the desire and hope for radical reforms did in me. As for democracy, not even Arnold’s dictum could move him. “The Demos” was for him always, the fatuous old man, with two oboli in his cheek, and a wide ear for the grossest flatteries which Cleon or the Sausage-seller could pour into it. Those of you who have begun Aristophanes will know to what I allude. Now, if he had been a man who had any great reverence for rank or privilege, or who had no sympathies with or care for the poor, or who was not roused to indignation by any act of oppression or tyranny, in the frame of mind I was in I should have cared very little for anything he might have urged. But, knowing as I did that the fact was precisely the reverse—that no man I had ever met was more indifferent to rank and title, more full of sympathy and kindliness to all below him, or more indignant at anything which savoured of injustice—I was obliged to admit that the truth could not be all on my side, and to question my own new faith far more carefully than I should have done otherwise.

And so this was the last good deed which he did for me when our ways in life parted for the first time, and I went up to London to read for the Bar, while he remained at Oxford. His plans were not fixed beyond the summer. He had promised to take two or three Oriel men to Scotlandon a reading party, and accordingly went with them to Oban in July; and, while there, accepted an offer, which came to him I scarcely know how, to take charge of the sons of the late Mr. Beaumont at Harrow, as their private tutor.

I must own I was much annoyed at the time when I heard of this resolution. I could see no reason for it, and many against it. Here was he, probably the most popular man of his day at Oxford, almost sure of a fellowship if he chose to stay up and read for it, one of the best oars and cricketers in England, a fine sportsman, and enjoying all these things thoroughly, and with the command of as much as he chose to take of them, deliberately shelving himself as the tutor of three young boys. I am afraid there was also a grain of snobbishness at the bottom of my dislike to the arrangement. Private tutors were looked upon then by young men—I hope it is so no longer—as a sort of upper servants; and I was weak enough, notwithstanding my newly acquired liberalism, to regard this move of George’s as a sort of loss of caste. He was my eldest brother, and I was very fond and proud of him. I was sure he would distinguish himself in any profession he chose to follow, while there was no absolute need of his following any; and it provoked me to think of his making what I thought a false move, and throwing away some of the best years of his life.

However, I knew it was useless to remonstrate, as he hadmade up his mind, and so held my tongue, and came to see that he was quite right. It was not till nearly three years later, when his engagement was over and he had entered at Doctors’ Commons, that I came to understand and appreciate his motives. The first of these you may gather from the following extract from a letter of your grandfather’s, dated February 23rd, 1849:—“George, it seems, is unusually lively at the idea of going tooth and nail to work with men instead of boys; and, now that he has for three years gratified his whim of keeping himself wholly off my hands, consents to be assisted like his brothers.” This “whim” of proving to his own satisfaction that he was worth his keep, and could make his own living, is not a very usual one nowadays, when most young Englishmen seem to assume that they have a natural right to maintenance at the expense of some one. He had then six other brothers, on whom the example was not altogether thrown away, though none of us were ever able quite to come up to it. It had the effect, however, of making us thoughtful in the matter of expenditure; and, consequently, of the four who went to the universities, and two who entered the army, not one got into any money difficulties.

But George had other motives for this step besides the “whim” of independence. He wished for leisure to make up his mind whether he should take holy orders, as he had at one time intended to do. And, since leaving Rugby, he had had no time either for the study of modern languagesor for general reading, and he was anxious to make up his arrears in both of these directions. This engagement would give him the leisure he wanted, while keeping him at regular routine work. His resolve, though taken at the risk of throwing himself back some years in his future profession, whatever that might be, was thoroughly characteristic of him, and owing, I think, in great measure to your grandfather’s own precepts. He was fond of telling us family stories, and there was none of these of which he was more proud than that of his maternal great-grandmother. This good lady was the widow of George Watts, Vicar of Uffington, a younger son himself, who died at the age of forty-two, leaving her in very poor circumstances. She sold off everything, and invested the proceeds in stocking a large dairy farm in the village where she had lived as the great lady, there being no resident squire in the parish. If any of you ever care to make a pilgrimage to the place, you will find the farmhouse, which she occupied nearly 200 years ago, close to the fish-pond in Uffington. She was well connected, and her friends tried to persuade her not to give up her old habits; but she steadily refused all visiting, though she was glad to give them a cup of chocolate, or the like, when they chose to call on her. By attending to her business, rising early and working late, she managed to portion her daughter, and give her son a Cambridge education, by which he profited, and died Master of the Temple, whereyou may see his monument. He was true to his mother’s training, and sacrificed good chances of further preferment, by preaching a sermon at Whitehall before George II. and his mistress, on Court vices, on the text, “And Nathan said unto David, Thou art the man.” Such stories, drunk in by a boy of a quiet, self-contained, thorough nature, were sure to have their effect; and this “whim” of George’s was one of their first-fruits in his case. I must add, that there is no family tradition which I would sooner see grow into an article of faith with all of you than this of thriftiness, and independence, as points of honour. So long as you arein statu pupillari, of course you must live at the expense of your friends; but you may do so either honestly, or dishonestly. A boy, or young man, born and bred a gentleman, ought to feel that there is an honourable contract between him and his friends; their part being to pay his bills, and make him such an allowance as they can afford, and think right, and sufficient; his, to work steadily, and not to get in debt, or cultivate habits and indulge tastes which he cannot afford. You will see through life all sorts of contemptible ostentation and shiftlessness on every side of you. Nurses, if they are allowed, begin with fiddle-faddling about children, till they make them utterly helpless, unable to do anything for themselves, and thinking such helplessness a fine thing. Ladies’ maids, grooms, valets, flunkeys, keepers, carry on the training as they get older. Even at public schools I can see this extravaganceand shiftlessness growing in every direction. There are all sorts of ridiculous expenses, in the shape of costumes and upholstery of one kind or another, which are always increasing. The machinery of games gets every year more elaborate. When I was in the eleven at Rugby, we “kept big-side” ourselves; that is to say, we did all the rolling, watering, and attending to the ground. We chose and prepared our own wickets, and marked out our own creases, for every match. We had no “professional” and no “pavilion,” but taught ourselves to play; and when a strange eleven was coming to play in the school close, asked the Doctor for one of the schools, in which we sat them down to a plain cold dinner. I don’t say that you have not better grounds, and are not more regularly trained cricketers now; but it has cost a great deal in many ways, and the game has been turned into a profession. Now, one set of boys plays just like another; then, each, of the great schools had its own peculiar style, by which you could distinguish it from the rest. And, after you leave school, you will find the same thing in more contemptible forms, at the Universities and in the world. You can’t alter society, or hinder people in general from being helpless, and vulgar—from letting themselves fall into slavery to the things about them if they are rich, or from aping the habits and vices of the rich if they are poor. But you may live simple manly lives yourselves, speaking your own thought, paying your own way, and doing your ownwork, whatever that may be. You will remain gentlemen so long as you follow these rules, if you have to sweep a crossing for your livelihood. You will not remain gentlemen in anything but the name, if you depart from them, though you may be set to govern a kingdom. And whenever the temptation comes to you to swerve from them, think of the subject of this memoir, of the old lady in the farmhouse by Uffington fish-pond, and the tablet in the Temple Church.

Such a resolution as that which, as I have just shown you, was taken by my brother at the end of his residence at Oxford, is always a turning-point in character. If faithfully and thoroughly carried out, it will strengthen the whole man; lifting him on to a new plane, as it were, and enabling him, without abruptly breaking away from his old life, to look at its surroundings from a higher standpoint, and so to get a new and a truer perspective. If repented of, or acted out half-heartedly, it is apt to impair a man’s usefulness sadly, to confuse his judgment, and soften the fibre of his will. He gets to look back upon his former pursuits with an exaggerated fondness, and to let them gradually creep back, till they get a stronger hold on him than ever, so that he never learns to put them in their right place at all. The moral of which to you boys is—think well over your important steps in life, and, having made up your minds, neverlook behind. George never did. From Oban he writes home: “My forthcoming engagement occupies all my thoughts, and indeed a good deal of my time; for if I intend to succeed, I must be well up in everything. I shall not, therefore, be able to make many excursions from Oban.” Your grandfather had been a friend of Sir Walter Scott, and had brought us up on his works; and had suggested to George that this would be a good opportunity for visiting a number of the spots immortalized by the Wizard of the North. This was his answer.

In the same spirit I find him writing about the same time as to a new cricket club, which was starting under very favourable auspices in Berkshire, and in which he had been asked to take a leading part: “I shall certainly not join the A. C. Club; and as for Tom, I should think his joining more improbable still. Cricket is over for both of us, except accidentally.”

In this spirit he took to his new work; and, going into it heartily and thoroughly, found it very pleasant. He occupied Byron House at Harrow, with his pupils, in which his old friend Mr. M. Arnold afterwards lived. There were several of his old schoolfellows, and college friends, among the Masters; and I, and others of his old friends, used to run down occasionally, on half-holidays, from London, and play football or cricket with the boys, amongst whom the prestige of his athletic career of course made him a great favourite and hero.Thus he got as much society as he cared for, and found time, in the intervals of his regular work, for a good deal of general reading. In fact, I never knew him more cheerful than during these years of what most of us regarded as lost time, and in which we certainly expected he would have been bored, and disappointed. This would not have been so perhaps had he proved unsuccessful; but his pupils got on well in the school and their father soon found him out, and appreciated him. At the beginning of the first long vacation he writes home:—

“Mr. Beaumont, finding I am fond of a gun, has most kindly offered me a week’s shooting on his moors. I could easily manage it, and meet you in London in time to visit Lady Salusbury. You will not think, I know well, that I like shooting better than home; and if you would like to see me before you go to London, pray say so, and the moors will not occupy another thought in my head. It is not everyone who would have taken the trouble to find out that I liked shooting and I feel Mr. Beaumont’s kindness; in fact, he seems as generous as a prince to everyone with whom he has anything to do.”

But it was in his own family, where he would have wished for it most, that the reward came most amply. He became in these years the trusted adviser of your grandfather on all family matters, and especially with respect to his three youngest brothers. The direction of their education was indeed almost handed over tohim, and nothing could exceed the admiration and devotion with which they soon learnt to regard him. The eldest of them was sent to Harrow in 1848 to be under his eye, and you may judge of the sort of supervision he exercised by this specimen of his reports:—

“I think he has been suffering the usual reaction which takes place when a boy goes to a new school. He worked hard at first, and then, finding he had a good deal of liberty and opportunity of amusement, grew slack. He is too fond of exercise to be naturally fond of work, as some boys are who are blessed with small animal spirits; and he is not yet old enough to see clearly the object of education, and the obligation of work. I have no doubt he will very soon find this out; but, if not, it will very soon be forced on his notice by the unpleasantness of being beaten by his contemporaries.”

Speaking of his letters of advice to the boys, your grandfather writes:—

“They have given me at least as much pleasure as them. You are doing a very kind thing in the most judicious way, and have assisted the stimulus which they required. Good leaders make a steady-going team, and allow the coachman to turn round on his box. Arthur [the youngest] will in his turn benefit by these fellows, I doubt not. You would, I think, be pleased to see how naturally he takes to cricket. In fact, take him altogether, he is a very good specimen of a six-year-old.”

But perhaps nothing will show you in a short space what he was to his younger brothers so well as one oftheir own letters to him, and one of his to your grandmother. The first is from your uncle Harry, written almost at the end of his first half at Rugby:—

“My dear George,“I am very much obliged to you for writing such a capital letter to me the other day, and for all your kind advice, which you may be sure is not entirely thrown away. I remember all the kind advice you gave me last winter, as we were coming from skating at Benham. You warned me from getting into ‘tick,’ and you said you were sure I should be able to act upon your good advice, and from that moment I determined not to go on tick, without I couldpossibly help. I haven’t owed a penny to anyone this half-year, and I don’t mean to owe anybody anything in the money way; and I have not spent all my money yet, and if I have not got enough to last me till the end of the half-year, I amdeterminednot to tick; and Iheartily thank Godthat I have elder brothers to guide me and advise me; I am afraid I should have done badly without them. You advised me also in your kind letter to work steadily. I fancy I am placed pretty decently; the form I am in is the upper remove. I keep low down in my form, principally from not knowing my Kennedy’s grammar. I find it very hard to say by heart. I should have been placed higher, I think, if I had known it; and I should advise Arthur to begin it now, if he is coming to Rugby, which I hope he is. He will find it disagreeable now, but he would find it worse if he did not know it when he came here. I think if you would be kind enough to write to him, and show him how necessary it is for him to learn it, he would be only too glad to do it. I think the great fault in me is, not so much forgetfulness, but a not having a determination to do a thing at the moment. I put it off. But Ihave, I am sorry to say, innumerable other faults. Mamma sent me a book of prayers, which I read whenever I have got time, and I say my prayers every night and morning, and I pray for all of you. I have now mentioned, I think, everything that you seemed anxious about in your letter.”

“My dear George,

“I am very much obliged to you for writing such a capital letter to me the other day, and for all your kind advice, which you may be sure is not entirely thrown away. I remember all the kind advice you gave me last winter, as we were coming from skating at Benham. You warned me from getting into ‘tick,’ and you said you were sure I should be able to act upon your good advice, and from that moment I determined not to go on tick, without I couldpossibly help. I haven’t owed a penny to anyone this half-year, and I don’t mean to owe anybody anything in the money way; and I have not spent all my money yet, and if I have not got enough to last me till the end of the half-year, I amdeterminednot to tick; and Iheartily thank Godthat I have elder brothers to guide me and advise me; I am afraid I should have done badly without them. You advised me also in your kind letter to work steadily. I fancy I am placed pretty decently; the form I am in is the upper remove. I keep low down in my form, principally from not knowing my Kennedy’s grammar. I find it very hard to say by heart. I should have been placed higher, I think, if I had known it; and I should advise Arthur to begin it now, if he is coming to Rugby, which I hope he is. He will find it disagreeable now, but he would find it worse if he did not know it when he came here. I think if you would be kind enough to write to him, and show him how necessary it is for him to learn it, he would be only too glad to do it. I think the great fault in me is, not so much forgetfulness, but a not having a determination to do a thing at the moment. I put it off. But Ihave, I am sorry to say, innumerable other faults. Mamma sent me a book of prayers, which I read whenever I have got time, and I say my prayers every night and morning, and I pray for all of you. I have now mentioned, I think, everything that you seemed anxious about in your letter.”

The next letter is dated two years later, when the question what profession the writer of the last was to follow, had become important:—

“Dearest Mother,“I will answer your questions as well as I am able. Harry will not lower himself by farming. It might have been so ten years ago, but the world is getting less absurd, and, besides, I think more gentlemen are now taking it up as a profession (Mr. Huxtable, for instance, and many others), and are most highly respected. But to succeed in farming in England now, one must be a remarkable man; one must thoroughly understand all practical details, and be able to work oneself better than a labourer; besides this, the farmer must be a tolerable chemist and geologist, must understand bookkeeping and accounts, and must be enterprising and yet cautious; as patient as Job, and as active minded (and bodied) as anyone you can think of. Now Harry, although amiable, is rather indolent, and unless he can entirely get rid of this, he will ruin himself in a year by farming in England. In Ireland or the colonies it might be different. For the same reasons I would not recommend the Bar for Harry. It is very laborious, the confinement great, and it requires a hard head: moreover, the education is quite as expensive as an Oxford one, if that is any consideration. However, if you think that Harry can acquire (not an ordinary, but) an extraordinaryamount of diligence, let him come to the Bar or farm. I confess I should discourage both ideas. If you can get a cadetship for him, I would certainly accept it. The two dangers of Indian military life are extravagance and dissipation, and I don’t think Harry inclined to either. He has not been extravagant at Rugby, and the temptations of a public school are as great as they are anywhere; and I think he is well-principled and kind-hearted, which will save him from the other danger. The army is getting much better, and officers begin to find out that they may do immense good in their profession by looking after the condition of their men. If you should obtain a cadetship, it will not be difficult to make Harry understand that he will have other duties besides drill, and I believe he would perform them. I am sure he would be exceedingly popular with officers and men. If he had been bad-tempered, or disobedient, or ill-conditioned, I should have recommended the navy, as by far the best school for such a character; but as he does not want such discipline, as we have no interest, as it is a poor profession in a worldly point of view, and as he is (I fancy) rather too old, I think it is out of the question. I confess I should hesitate much between orders and the army. If I saw any likelihood of Harry’s doing anything at Oxford, I should like to see him a clergyman. I am sure he would be a conscientious one, and therefore happy. But Idon’tthink he would do anything (though of course he would pass), and there are the same temptations there as in the army. On the whole, I would try immediately to procure a cadetship; if you cannot get one, I would try to induce Harry to take orders. I said something about Ireland and the colonies in connection with farming. On second thoughts, I don’t think Harry would be a suitable person. Amiable tempers always require (at first) some one to look up to and lean upon; they arelonger in learning to stand alone. Now, no one is so much isolated as a colonist. He is thrown entirely on his own resources, and has no one to give him advice and sympathy. In the army, and indeed in orders, one is generally trained to bear responsibility. So I am for the cadetship. He will be at once provided for, and will return to England in the prime of life with a competence. This is always supposing that he will escape the dangers of the profession (as I think), and that you and he do not think the advantages counterbalanced by the separation. I have no doubt that when communication with India is easier (and it will soon be incredibly easier), officers will come home at shorter intervals.”

“Dearest Mother,

“I will answer your questions as well as I am able. Harry will not lower himself by farming. It might have been so ten years ago, but the world is getting less absurd, and, besides, I think more gentlemen are now taking it up as a profession (Mr. Huxtable, for instance, and many others), and are most highly respected. But to succeed in farming in England now, one must be a remarkable man; one must thoroughly understand all practical details, and be able to work oneself better than a labourer; besides this, the farmer must be a tolerable chemist and geologist, must understand bookkeeping and accounts, and must be enterprising and yet cautious; as patient as Job, and as active minded (and bodied) as anyone you can think of. Now Harry, although amiable, is rather indolent, and unless he can entirely get rid of this, he will ruin himself in a year by farming in England. In Ireland or the colonies it might be different. For the same reasons I would not recommend the Bar for Harry. It is very laborious, the confinement great, and it requires a hard head: moreover, the education is quite as expensive as an Oxford one, if that is any consideration. However, if you think that Harry can acquire (not an ordinary, but) an extraordinaryamount of diligence, let him come to the Bar or farm. I confess I should discourage both ideas. If you can get a cadetship for him, I would certainly accept it. The two dangers of Indian military life are extravagance and dissipation, and I don’t think Harry inclined to either. He has not been extravagant at Rugby, and the temptations of a public school are as great as they are anywhere; and I think he is well-principled and kind-hearted, which will save him from the other danger. The army is getting much better, and officers begin to find out that they may do immense good in their profession by looking after the condition of their men. If you should obtain a cadetship, it will not be difficult to make Harry understand that he will have other duties besides drill, and I believe he would perform them. I am sure he would be exceedingly popular with officers and men. If he had been bad-tempered, or disobedient, or ill-conditioned, I should have recommended the navy, as by far the best school for such a character; but as he does not want such discipline, as we have no interest, as it is a poor profession in a worldly point of view, and as he is (I fancy) rather too old, I think it is out of the question. I confess I should hesitate much between orders and the army. If I saw any likelihood of Harry’s doing anything at Oxford, I should like to see him a clergyman. I am sure he would be a conscientious one, and therefore happy. But Idon’tthink he would do anything (though of course he would pass), and there are the same temptations there as in the army. On the whole, I would try immediately to procure a cadetship; if you cannot get one, I would try to induce Harry to take orders. I said something about Ireland and the colonies in connection with farming. On second thoughts, I don’t think Harry would be a suitable person. Amiable tempers always require (at first) some one to look up to and lean upon; they arelonger in learning to stand alone. Now, no one is so much isolated as a colonist. He is thrown entirely on his own resources, and has no one to give him advice and sympathy. In the army, and indeed in orders, one is generally trained to bear responsibility. So I am for the cadetship. He will be at once provided for, and will return to England in the prime of life with a competence. This is always supposing that he will escape the dangers of the profession (as I think), and that you and he do not think the advantages counterbalanced by the separation. I have no doubt that when communication with India is easier (and it will soon be incredibly easier), officers will come home at shorter intervals.”

Meantime he was studying the same question carefully in his own case, with a view to determining whether he should take orders when his work at Harrow was over. His father and mother, though on the whole wishing that he should do so, were perfectly content to let him think the matter out, and settle it his own way. They seem, however, to have supplied him with specimens of contemporary pulpit literature, upon some of which he comments in his correspondence, not, on the whole, with any enthusiasm. “Surely,” he sums up some criticism on a popular preacher of that day, “there is a pulpit eloquence equally remote from fine writing and familiarity, such as was Dr. Arnold’s. I am doubtful as to reading these books, for I know that I ought not to think of the style, and yet I cannot help it. It takes me down against my will.”

Your grandfather replied: “The Church ought certainlyto be a labour of love, and followed with zeal. If on a final review of your sentiments, aided perhaps by the advice of some clergyman you look up to (why not Vaughan?) you do not think you could engraft this zeal on sound convictions, and an upright character, you are quite right in deciding for the Bar. In after life you will not be wholly dependent on a profession, and many of our best men have started as late.”

In the end he made up his mind against taking orders, but not on any of the grounds which deter so many young men of ability now. “My only objection,” he writes to his mother, “to taking orders is, that it might not suit me. Once ordained, it is impossible to change your profession; and unless a man has his whole soul in this profession, he is useless, or worse.”

And so, at the end of his three years at Harrow, he resolved to go to the Bar, and choosing that branch of it for which his previous reading had best qualified him, took his degree of Doctor of Civil Law, and entered at Doctors’ Commons.

You will have recognized by this time how carefully your grandfather watched the development of character in his sons, and that he was by no means inclined to overlook their faults, or to over-estimate their good qualities. The longer I live myself, the more highly I am inclined to rate his judgment of men and things, and this is the conclusion he had formed at this time of his eldest son’scharacter. It occurs in a letter to a relative then living, and dated 25th January, 1849:—

“I am glad you have had an opportunity (difficult to get from his reserved character) of seeing what is in George when put to the proof. There are many men of his age with more active benevolence and habits of more general utility, as well as perhaps warmer spiritual feeling, also more useful acquired knowledge. His greatforte, rather lies in those qualities which give men the ascendency in more troubled times—perfect consistency of word and purpose, great moral and physical courage, and a scrupulous sense of what is due to oneself and others in the relations of social life, combined with the caution a man should possess, who never intends to retract an opinion or a profession. Much perhaps of thechevalier sans tachewho used to be the fashion in the rough times before steam and ’ologies came in. In my time these sort of people were always more popular among Oxford youngsters (who are very acute in reading character) than mere wits, scholars, or dashing men. I suppose it is so still, and thereby account for the estimation which it seems he had in Oriel. And I apprehend this sort of established character must help a man in a profession where he means to work, and I will answer for his doing so.”

But there is one feature in George’s character which this estimate of it does not bring out. I mean his great unselfishness. As an illustration of this, I will show you how he treated a proposal made on account of your grandfather while he was at Harrow. We had had the first loss in our circle. Your uncle Walter, whom none of you remember, a young officer in theArtillery, had died of an attack of yellow fever in British Guiana. This had shaken your grandfather a good deal, and his health was no longer strong enough to allow him to follow, and enjoy, his country pursuits. Besides, the house at Donnington was too big for the shrunken family which now gathered there, and those of us who had flitted were settled, or likely to settle, in London. So it was thought that it would be well for your grandfather, and all of us, if he were to follow, and move up to the neighbourhood of town. In any case George’s opinion would have been the first taken on such a step, but in this it was necessary that he should consent, as Donnington was settled on him. He was very much attached to the place in which we had all grown up; and local, and county, and family associations had a peculiarly strong hold on him. But all these were set aside without a second thought. All he was anxious about was, that so serious a change should be well considered. “I think,” he writes to his mother, “you should be cautious about changing. In the first place, it will cause you personally an immense amount of annoyance, which you ought never to incur, especially now. Then you will miss your garden, and your village occupations, and your neighbours. My last letter might have led you to suppose that I myself preferred Hampstead to Donnington, but that is not the case. I should consider it desirable under certain circumstances. If you and my father, and Jeanie and therest, think these circumstances exist, I sincerely hope you will change, and lose no time about it. But do not do a thing which will cause you a great deal of trouble and annoyance without the clearest grounds. Above all, believe, and this I say with the most perfect truth, that I shall be equally happy whichever you do.”

At the time when my brother’s Harrow engagement came to an end, I had just settled in a London house, and, to my great delight, he proposed to come and live with us, and occupy our spare room in Upper Berkeley Street. Besides all my other reasons for rejoicing at this arrangement, which you may easily imagine for yourselves when you have read thus far, there was a special one just at this time, which I must now explain. The years 1848-9 had been years of revolution, and, as always happens at such times, the minds of men had been greatly stirred on many questions, and specially on the problem of the social condition of the great mass of the poor in all European countries. In Paris, the revolution had been the signal for a great effort on the part of the workmen; and some remarkable experiments had been made, both by the Provisional Government of 1848, and by certain employers of labour, and bodies of skilled mechanics, with a view to place the conditions of labour upon a moreequitable and satisfactory footing; or, to use the common phrase of the day, to reconcile the interests of capital and labour. The Government experiment of “national workshops” had failed disastrously, but a number of the private associations were brilliantly successful. The history of some of these associations—of the sacrifices which had been joyfully made by the associates in order to collect the small funds necessary to start them—of the ability and industry with which they were conducted, and of their marvellous effect on the habits of all those engaged in the work—had deeply interested many persons in England. It was resolved to try an experiment of the same kind here, but the conditions were very different. The seed there had already taken root amongst the industrial classes, and the movement had come from them. Here the workpeople, as a rule, had no belief in association except for defensive purposes. It was chiefly amongst young professional men that the idea was working, and it was necessary to preach it to those whom it most concerned. Accordingly a society was formed, chiefly of young barristers, under the presidency of the late Mr. Maurice, who was then Chaplain of Lincoln’s Inn, for the purpose of establishing associations similar to those in Paris. It was called the Society for Promoting Working Men’s Associations, and I happened to be one of the original members, and on the Council. We were all full of enthusiasm and hope in our work, and of propagandist zeal: anxious tobring in all the recruits we could. I cannot even now think of my own state of mind at the time without wonder and amusement. I certainly thought (and for that matter have never altered my opinion to this day) that here we had found the solution of the great labour question; but I was also convinced that we had nothing to do but just to announce it, and found an association or two, in order to convert all England, and usher in the millennium at once, so plain did the whole thing seem to me. I will not undertake to answer for the rest of the Council, but I doubt whether I was at all more sanguine than the majority. Consequently we went at it with a will: held meetings at six o’clock in the morning (so as not to interfere with our regular work) for settling the rules of our central society, and its offshoots, and late in the evening, for gathering tailors, shoemakers, and other handicraftsmen, whom we might set to work; started a small publishing office, presided over by a diminutive one-eyed costermonger, a rough and ready speaker and poet (who had been in prison as a Chartist leader), from which we issued tracts and pamphlets, and ultimately a small newspaper; and, as the essential condition of any satisfactory progress, commenced a vigorous agitation for such an amendment in the law as would enable our infant Associations to carry on their business in safety, and without hindrance. We very soon had our hands full. Our denunciations of unlimited competition brought on usattacks in newspapers and magazines, which we answered, nothing loth. Our opponents called us Utopians and Socialists, and we retorted that at any rate we were Christians; that our trade principles were on all-fours with Christianity, while theirs were utterly opposed to it. So we got, or adopted, the name of Christian Socialists, and gave it to our tracts, and our paper. We were ready to fight our battle wherever we found an opening, and got support from the most unexpected quarters. I remember myself being asked by Mr. Senior, an old friend of your grandfather, to meet Archbishop Whately, and several eminent political economists, and explain what we were about. After a couple of hours of hard discussion, in which I have no doubt I talked much nonsense, I retired, beaten, but quite unconvinced. Next day, the late Lord Ashburton, who had been present, came to my chambers and gave me a cheque for £50 to help our experiment; and a few days later I found another nobleman, sitting on the counter of our shoemakers’ association, arguing with the manager, and giving an order for boots.

It was just in the midst of all this that my brother came to live with us. I had already converted him, as I thought. He was a subscribing member of our Society, and dealt with our Associations; and I had no doubt would now join the Council, and work actively in the new crusade. I knew how sound his judgment was, and that he never went back from a resolution once taken,and therefore was all the more eager to make sure of him, and, as a step in this direction, had already placed his name on committees, and promised his attendance. But I was doomed to disappointment. He attended one or two of our meetings, but I could not induce him to take any active part with us. At a distance of twenty-two years it is of course difficult to recall very accurately what passed between us, but I can remember his reasons well enough to give the substance of them. And first, as he had formerly objected to the violent language of the leaders of the Anti-Corn-Law agitation, so he now objected to what he looked upon as our extravagance. “You don’t want to divide other people’s property?” “No.” “Then why call yourselves Socialists?” “But we couldn’t help ourselves: other people called us so first.” “Yes; but you needn’t have accepted the name. Why acknowledge that the cap fitted?” “Well, it would have been cowardly to back out. We borrow the ideas of these Frenchmen, of association as opposed to competition as the true law of industry; and of organizing labour—of securing the labourer’s position by organizing production and consumption—and it would be cowardly to shirk the name. It is only fools who know nothing about the matter, or people interested in the competitive system of trade, who believe, or say, that a desire to divide other people’s property is of the essence of Socialism.” “That may be very true: but nine-tenths of mankind, or,at any rate, of Englishmen, come under one or the other of those categories. If you are called Socialists, you will never persuade the British public that this is not your object. There was no need to take the name. You have weight enough to carry already, without putting that on your shoulders.” This was his first objection, and he proved to be right. At any rate, after some time we dropped the name, and turned the “Christian Socialist” into the “Journal of Association.” And English Socialists generally have instinctively avoided it ever since, and called themselves “co-operators,” thereby escaping much abuse in the intervening years. And, when I look back, I confess I do not wonder that we repelled rather than attracted many men who, like my brother, were inclined theoretically to agree with us. For I am bound to admit that a strong vein of fanaticism and eccentricity ran through our ranks, which the marvellous patience, gentleness, and wisdom of our beloved president were not enough to counteract, or control. Several of our most active and devoted members were also strong vegetarians, and phonetists. In a generation when beards and wide-awakes were looked upon as insults to decent society, some of us wore both, with a most heroic indifference to public opinion. In the same way, there was often a trenchant, and almost truculent, tone about us, which was well calculated to keep men of my brother’s temperament at a distance. I rather enjoyed it myself, but learnt itsunwisdom when I saw its effect on him, and others, who were inclined to join us, and would have proved towers of strength. It was right and necessary to denounce the evils of unlimited competition, and the falsehood of the economic doctrine of “every man for himself;” but quite unnecessary, and therefore unwise, to speak of the whole system of trade as “the disgusting vice of shop-keeping,” as was the habit of several of our foremost and ablest members.

But what really hindered my brother from taking an active share in our work was not these eccentricities, which soon wore off, and were, at the worst, superficial. When he came to look the work fairly in the face, he found that he could not heartily sympathise with it; and the quality of thoroughness in him, which your grandfather notices, would not let him join half-heartedly. His conclusion was reached somehow in this way: “It comes to this, then. What you are all aiming at is, the complete overthrow of the present trade system, and the substitution of what, you say, will prove a more honest and righteous one. It is not simply a question of setting up, and getting a legal status for, these half-dozen associations of tailors and shoemakers, and these grocery stores. If the principle is good for anything, it must spread everywhere, and into every industrial process. It can’t live peaceably side by side with the present system. They are absolutely antagonistic, and the one must cast out the other. Isn’t that so?” I, of course,could not deny the conclusion. “Well, then,” his argument went on, “I don’t see my way clearly enough to go on. Your principle I can’t object to. It certainly seems truer, and stronger, and more in accord with Christianity, than the other. But, after all, the business of the world has always gone on upon the other, and the world has had plenty of time to get to understand its own business. You may say the results are not satisfactory, are proofs that the world has done nothing but blunder. It may be so: but, after all, experience must count for something, and the practical wear and tear of centuries. Self-interest may be a low motive, but the system founded upon it has managed somehow, with all its faults, to produce a very tolerable kind of world. When yours comes to be tried practically, just as great abuses may be found inseparable from it. You may only get back the old evils under new forms. The long and short of it is, I hate upsetting things, which seems to be your main object. You say that you like to see people discontented with society as it is, and are ready to help to make them so, because it is full of injustice, and abuses of all kinds, and will never be better till men are thoroughly discontented. I don’t see these evils so strongly as you do; don’t believe in heroic remedies; and would sooner see people contented, and making the best of society as they find it. In fact, I was born and bred a Tory, and can’t help it.”

I remember it all very vividly, because it was a greatgrief to me at the time, chiefly because I was very anxious to have him with us; but, partly, because I had made so sure of getting him that I had boasted of it to our Council, which included several of our old school and college friends. They were delighted, knowing what a valuable recruit he would prove, and now I had to make the humiliating confession, that I had reckoned without my host. He continued to pay his subscription, and to get his clothes at our tailors’ association till it failed, which was more than some of our number did, for the cut was so bad as to put the sternest principles to a severe test. But I could see that this was done out of kindness to me, and not from sympathy with what we were doing.

But my disappointment had at least this good result, that it opened my eyes thoroughly, and made me tolerant of opposition to my own most earnest, and deepest, convictions. I have been what I suppose would be called an advanced Liberal ever since I was at Oxford, but have never been able to hate or despise the old-fashioned Tory creed; for it was the creed of almost the kindest, and bravest, and ablest man I have ever known intimately—my own brother.

I must, however, add here, that he always watched with great interest the social revolution in which he could not take an active part. In 1851, the Industrial and Provident Societies’ Act, under which the co-operative societies of different kinds first obtained legal recognition, was passed, chiefly owing to the exertions of Mr. Ludlow and othermembers of our old Council. There are now more than 1,000 societies registered under that Act in England alone, doing a yearly business of ten millions and owning property of the amount of £2,500,000 and upwards; and as he saw the principle spreading, and working practically, and, wherever it took root, educating the people in self-control, and thrift, and independence, he was far too good an Englishman not to rejoice at, and sympathise with, the result, though I doubt whether he ever quite got over the feeling of distrust and anxiety with which he regarded even a peaceful, and apparently beneficent, revolution.

You all know how much I wish that you should take a thorough and intelligent interest, and, in due time, an active part, in public affairs. I don’t mean that you should adopt politics as a profession, because, as matters stand in this country, poor men, as most of you will be, are not able, as a rule, to do this and retain their independence. But I want you to try to understand politics, and to study important questions as they arise, so that you may be always ready to support, with all the influence you may happen to have, the measures and policy which you have satisfied yourselves will be best for your country. Of course I should like to see you all of my own way of thinking; but this is not at all likely to happen, and I care comparatively little whether you turn out Liberals or Tories, so that you take your sides conscientiously, and hold to them through good and evil report; always remembering,at the same time, that those who are most useful and powerful in supporting a cause, are those who know best what can be said against it; and that your opponents are just as likely to be upright and honest men as yourselves, or those with whom you agree. My brother’s example taught me this, and I hope it may do as much for you.

There is a little poem of Lowell’s, which brings out so well the contrast between the two forces constantly at work in human affairs, and illustrates so beautifully the tempers which should underlie all action in them, that I am sure you will thank me for quoting it here. It is called “Above and Below:”—

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