CHAPTER XLV.

"Into some other wicked man's mindHis foolish brother is peeping to find,Caught in foul excitement's snare,The Lying Future there!"

Ever since Schiller wrote his famous song about a poet's heritage (ay, and long before that, as it will be long years hence), authorship has been noted for anything rather than wealth; albeit, nowadays, we have had such fortunate scribes as Dickens and Thackeray and Trollope, who severally have left piles of well-earned money behind them; though they all had encountered previous mischances before. Accordingly, in this true record of my life, I must not omit its reverses, for, though born with a silver spoon in my mouth (perhaps a bismuth one, such as in my chemical days I melted in hot tea), and always having had plentiful surroundings, there has been often much also of financial embarrassment, though not always nor usually from the author's fault. I am not going to accuse others any more than myself, only hinting that it has been costly to be a sleeping-partner, especially when the chief fails; that it is discouraging to economic thrift when the investments wherein you place your savings come to an untimely end; that in particular the Albert Life Insurance was a notorious swindle, wherein more than twenty years' of banked-up prudent earnings, besides the original policy, vanished in an hour; that my early efforts to win fortune werestumped from impediment of speech; and that some of those on whom I depended, as well as others dependent on me, met with misfortunes, deserved or undeserved. Anyhow, I have just now no reason to complain of bursting barns or inflated money-bags. Everybody knows (so I need not blink it) that some time ago a few friends kindly got up a so-called testimonial for my benefit; but that sort of thing had been overdone in other instances; and it is small wonder that (although certainly not quite such a fiasco as with Ginx's Baby) the trouble and care and humiliation are scarcely compensated where the costs and defaults are considerable: however, I desire heartily to thank its promoters and contributors, one and all; even those who promised but never paid.

With reference to other efforts, my two Transatlantic visits, and divers reading tours at home, show that self-help never was neglected, as, indeed, former pages will have proved. Accordingly, as Providence helps those who help themselves, or at all events endeavour to do so, I still lean on the heraldic motto, given to General Volkmar von Tophere by Henri Quatre, "L'espoir est ma force." I will here add two American anecdotes whereby it might seem that heretofore I have unwittingly jilted Fortune when she would have blest me with her favour.

I had just landed in New York after a stormy fortnight in theAsia(it wasa.d.1851) and taken up my quarters at the Astor House, to rest before friends found me out. But my arrival had been published, and before, in private, I had taken my first refreshment, the host, a colonel of course, came and asked if I would allow a few of my admirers to greet me. Doubtless,natural vanity was willing, and through my room, having doors right and left, forthwith came a stream of well-wishers all shaking hands and saying kind words for an hour and more; at last they departed, all but one, who had come first and boldly had taken a chair beside me: when the crowd were gone, he bluntly (or let it be frankly) said, "I'm one of the richest men in New York, sir, and I know authors must be poor; I like your books, and have told my bankers (naming them) to honour any cheques on me you may like to draw." "My dear sir," I replied, "you are most considerate, and all I can say is, if I have the misfortune to lose this packet (it was a roll of Herries's circular notes) I shall gladly accept your offer; but just now I have more than I want—£300." "Well then, sir, come and stay at my house, Fifth Avenue." "This is very kind, but several friends here have specially invited me, so I am compelled to decline." "Then, sir, my yacht in the harbour is at your service." "Pardon me, but I would rather forget all memories of the sea at present,—with due thanks." "Then, sir, my carriage has been waiting at the hotel all this time, let me have the honour of taking you to see Mrs. So-and-so, who is anxious to meet you." Of course I could not refuse this, nor the occasional loan of his handsome turn-out whenever other friends let me go. Who knows how nearly I then missed smiles from the blind goddess, by my sturdy refusal of her favours, for I heard afterwards that the wealthy Mr.—— was childless! Again, at Baltimore, after my Historical dinner (see a former page), comes up to me a very shabby-looking man, as I thought to beg. He sidled up and whispered that he wanted me to go home with him. I'm afraid I rather snubbedhim; but was sorry for it afterwards, when told that he was the rich old miser So-and-so, who had never taken a fancy to any one before. What a dolt I must have been to snub away the possible codicil of a millionaire!

On page 3 of this book I proposed no mention of private domesticities or of personal religious experiences—the one being of interest merely to my family, the other a matter between God and the soul. However, the recent sudden death of one for fifty years my faithful friend and companion in marriage, urges me to record here simply her many excellent qualities, which must not be passed by without a regretful word as if I were a Stoic, or as if my dear good wife of half a century could be silently forgotten by her bereaved husband and children. I began this biography when she was in her usual health and spirits, but soon after its commencement a fit of apoplexy took her unconsciously from our happy circle,—and we are made to feel by this affliction, as also by another over leaf, how truly "in the midst of life we are in death." Her body awaits the Resurrection in Albury Churchyard, and her spirit lives with us in affectionate remembrance.

My lamented son, Henry de Beauvoir, active and athletic, was killed in South Africa by the most unlikely accident of being jolted off the front seat in a rutty road and crushed to death under the wheel of an ox-waggon creeping at two miles an hour! This sad event occurred on May 31, 1871: and the newspapers at the time, both British and South African, fully recorded not only the accident but the heroism of the brave youth, the kind but unavailing assiduities of friends, and the municipal honours accorded to him at his funeral, when the mayor and council, the volunteers and chief inhabitants of King William's Town (every window shuttered) followed him to the grave, where Archdeacon Kitton read the solemn service; and some months after, a marble headstone was placed over his remains. His two brothers have written some touching stanzas to his memory: but they are private.

I mention all this sadness now by way of publicly acknowledging the kindness of Archdeacon Kitton and, other friends at King William's Town, not forgetting a most friendly officer of the American navy, from whom we have received many excellent letters and presents from all round the world, ever since he was among the first to break to us the death of my son, now fifteen years ago: I desire, then, cordially to thank T. G. for thesekindnesses: as also Mr. Robertson, of Brechin, N.B., whose son was Henry's African comrade, with him at the time of the catastrophe, and following him to the grave.

Henry having been for good ancestral reasons christened de Beauvoir, reminds me of a memorable matter of our family history which, as it is on record, I will here relate. In the days of King James I. (to quote with pedantic omissions from a pedigree), one Peter de Beauvoir, descended from a younger branch of the ducal house of Rutland, had an eldest son, James, whose daughter Rachel married Pierre Martin (my spiritual sponsor after Martin Luther), and her daughter married a Carey of Guernsey, whose descendant married my grandfather. Peter's second son, Richard, married a Priaulx, also related to us, and her daughter married a Benyon, in Charles II.'s time, whose descendant is now the millionaire, Sir Richard Benyon de Beauvoir of Reading, &c. &c. Now, this is the strange fact which has always puzzled me as well as others. The old De Beauvoir was a very thrifty miser, and died two hundred years ago possessed of great wealth, which has increased enormously up to our day, seeing he had landed property in the north of London, now including De Beauvoir Town.

In the second generation, his grand-daughters Rachel Martin of the elder branch and Marie Priaulx of the younger, contended at law for the inheritance after some intestacy: and a terrible lawsuit raged in Chancery for 150 years, between the Tuppers and the Benyons,—and was carried even to the House of Lords, being finally decided in my memory for the Benyons. I remember my uncle saying he would not take thirty thousand pounds for his individual chance,—but my less sanguine father cared not to join in the lawsuit,—saying he wouldnot "throw good money after bad." For my own judgment, and I can speak as an old conveyancing barrister (though without business or experience) of nearly fifty years' standing, our side as the elder had the best right, though the two sisters might well and wisely have shared in a compromise. But somehow it came to be decided that the younger claimant of that vast property must haveall,—and the elder be strangely left out in the cold. After the conclusion of the Lords, further litigation was hopeless: so those whom I now represent (as almost the "last of the Abruzzi") must acquiesce in getting nothing, while the opponent side has the good luck to possess, as Dr. Johnson has it, "wealth beyond the dreams of avarice." Such is life,—and law: the most obstinate and the richest win: the less pertinacious and the poorer are allowed to fail: it is a process of Darwin's survival of the fittest. All this is now "too late to mend:" but I do hope that if ever I go to Engelfield Castle, Sir Richard will be kindly and genial to his far-off cousin, who (but for some legal quibble unknown) might have dispossessed him.

My father numbered among his patients the Duke of Rutland, and I have heard him say that they half-humorously called each other cousins.

In this connection of possible good luck that never happened, let me record this.

Another of my father's patients was the long deceased Earl Grosvenor, grandfather of the present Duke of Westminster; and about him I have a tale to tell, which shows how nearly we might have been possessed of another vast property—but we missed it. One day inmy boyhood, I remember my father coming home after his round and telling my mother that he had a great mind to buy "the five fields" of Lord Grosvenor's, because he thought London might extend that way. Those five fields are now covered with the palatial streets of Belgravia,—but were then a dismal marshy flat intersected by black ditches, and notorious for highway robbery, as a district dimly lit with an oil lamp here and there, and protected by nothing but the useless old watchman in his box: it is the tract of land between Grosvenor Place and Sloane Street. His lordship had a reputation for parsimony, and he fancied it a bargain if he could sell to my father those squalid fields for £2000,—so he offered them to him at that price. When my mother heard of this, she was dead against so extravagant an outlay for that desolate region; so much dreaded by her whenever her aunt's black horses in the old family coach ploughed their way through the slush (MacAdam had not then arisen to give us granite roads) to call on an ancient relative, Mr. Hall, who possessed a priceless cupboard of old Chelsea china, and lived near the hospital. A tradition existed that the said family waggon had once been "stopped" thereabouts by some vizored knight of the road, and this memory confirmed my mother's disapproval of the purchase. So my father was dissuaded, and declined the Earl's offer. I don't suppose that if he had accepted it the property would long have been his, but must have changed hands directly he had doubled his investment: otherwise, imagine what a bargain was there!—However, nobody can foresee anything beyond an inch or a minute, and so this other chance of "wealth beyond the dreams of avarice" long ago faded away.

A lecture which I gave at the Royal Aquarium on September 28, 1883, on the Art of Human Flight, attracted at the time a good deal of newspaper notice; my friend Colonel Fred. Burnaby being in the chair, supported by several other aeronautical notables. From a rough copy by me I have thought fit to preserve the exordium here, just as spoken.

"'Tis sixty years since,"—as the title-page to Waverley has it,—'tis sixty years since a little Charterhouse schoolboy of thirteen called on one Saturday afternoon (his half-holiday) at a shabby office up a court in Fleet Street, with a few saved-up shillings of pocket-money in his hand. His object was secretly to bribe a balloon agent to give him a seat in the basket on the next flight from Vauxhall: however as, either from prudential humanity or commercial greed, the clerk stated that five pounds was the fixed price for a place, and as the aforesaid little gentleman could only produce ten shillings, the negotiation came to nothing,—and I, who had coveted from my cradle the privilege that a bird enjoys from his nest, was fortunately refused that juvenile voyage in the clouds: whereof when I told my excellent mother, her tearful joy that I hadnotmade theperilous ascent affectionately consoled my disappointment.

So it is that, as often happens throughout life, and I am a living proof of it, our Failures prove to be the best Successes: for certainly if my boyish whim had been granted, and I had thereafter taken habitually to such aeronautical flights, at once perilous and unsettling, that young Carthusian would scarcely have stood before you this day as an ancient Proverbial Philosopher.

However, let that pass: I only acted—as oftentimes I since have longed to act—on the desire we all feel to have "the wings of a dove, and fly away and be at rest,"—floating afar from the dross and dust of earth into the blue expanse of the heavenly ether:—a thing yet to be accomplished!—or I will confess to be no prophet: in these days of electricity, concentrated and accumulative after the fashion of M. Faure, aided perhaps by some lighter gas, some condensed form of tamed dynamite,—these elevating and motive powers being helped by exquisite mechanism either as attached to the human form (if the flier be an athlete) or quickening a vehicle with flapping wings impelled by electricity, in which he might sit (if said flier is as burdened with "too solid flesh" as some of us)—these mixed potencies, I say, of electricity and gas, ought at this time of the day to be so manipulated by our chemists and mechanicians as to issue—very soon too—in the grand invention than would supersede every other sort of locomotion,—human flight.

I once met at Baltimore, and since elsewhere, a clever young American mathematician and engineer, Henry Middleton by name, who showed me, at his father's place in South Carolina, parts of a model energisedby the motive-powers of gas and electricity, which he hoped would successfully solve the problem of flying; but the Patent Office at Washington was burnt down soon after, and in it I fear was his machine. At all events I have heard nothing of his project since.

I may mention, too, that I believe I have among my audience this evening Mr. De Lisle Hay, the author not only of that recent very graphic book "Brighter Britain," but also of another, more cognate to our present topic, entitled "Three Hundred Years Hence," now out of print, though published only three years ago. In this latter work he has a chapter on "Our Conquest of the Air," and imagines a lighter gas called by him "lucegene," as also a bird-like human flight very much as I had conceived it forty-one years ago. He tells me also that the best vehicle for flying might be an imitation of the sidelong action of a flat fish in water; but how far he has worked upon this idea I know not. Possibly, if in the room, he may tell us after I release you.

It is most worthy of notice, that in the almost solitary Biblical instance of winged angels (see Isaiah vi. 2, and a corresponding passage in Ezekiel—all other angelic ministers being represented as etherealised men) these are somewhat like birds in outline, though having more wings,—with twain covering the head so as to cleave the air, with twain to cover the feet so as to be a sort of tail or rudder, while with twain they did fly: even as Blake, and Raffaelle, and some other painters have depicted them. I mentioned this once to Professor Owen, our great natural philosopher, in a talk I had with him on human flight, and he thought such seraphim very remarkable in the light of analogous comparative anatomy.

Ovid also in a passage before me advocates our imitation of birds if we would fly bodily: in his "De Icari Casu," he says (with omissions)—

"Naturamque novat: nam ponit in ordine pennasA minimâ cœptas, longam breviore sequenti: ...Sic imitentur aves: geminas libravit in alasIpse suum corpus, motâque pependit in aurâ."

Which, being interpreted, means this,—

"Nature he reproduces, ranging fineFrom least to longest feathery plumes aline,Thus imitating birds, that on the airWith balanced wings are poised in lightness there."

Whilst our noble Laureate in "Locksley Hall" goes in for aerial machines, "Argosies of magic sails," and "airy navies grappling in the central blue."

As to that essay of mine published in the first number of Ainsworth's Magazine, August 1842, long before the Patent Aerial Company started their projects, and very much noticed at the time,—Mr. Claude Hamilton ingrafted it in his work on Flying; the Duke of Argyll in a note before me commends this principle of copying nature as the true one; a Signor Ignazio of Milan in 1877 adopted almost exactly my Flying Man,—which was for the lecture enlarged from Cruikshank's etching of my own sketch: an aerial flapping machine, a sort of flying wheelbarrow, was some twenty years ago exhibited at Kensington: whilst in theDaily Telegraphfor July 10, 1874, you will find recorded the untimely death of one M. de Groof, the Flying Man, who unhappily perished at Cremorne after a successful flight of 5000 feet. All these are on record.

Of Change and Travel."All of us have within us the wandering Crusoe spirit;We come of Norse sea-rovers, and adventurers full of hope:And man was bade to tame his earth, to rule it and subdue it,—Whereby our feet-soles tingle at an untrod Alpine peak—But shall we not fly anon with wings, to shame these creeping paces,Even as steam hath worked all speed on land and sea before?Is not this firmament of air part of the human heritage,Which man must conquer duteously, as first his Maker willed?There needeth but a lighter gas, well-tutored to our skill,The springing spirit to some shape of delicate steel and silk,—A bird-like frame of Daedalus, and gummed Icarian plumes,Ancient inventions, long forgotten, to be found anew!When shall the chemist mix aright this rarer lifting essenceTo make the lord of earth but equal to his many sparrows?When will discovery help us to such conquest of the air,And teach us swifter travel than our creeps by land and water?"

Of Change and Travel.

"All of us have within us the wandering Crusoe spirit;We come of Norse sea-rovers, and adventurers full of hope:And man was bade to tame his earth, to rule it and subdue it,—Whereby our feet-soles tingle at an untrod Alpine peak—But shall we not fly anon with wings, to shame these creeping paces,Even as steam hath worked all speed on land and sea before?Is not this firmament of air part of the human heritage,Which man must conquer duteously, as first his Maker willed?There needeth but a lighter gas, well-tutored to our skill,The springing spirit to some shape of delicate steel and silk,—A bird-like frame of Daedalus, and gummed Icarian plumes,Ancient inventions, long forgotten, to be found anew!When shall the chemist mix aright this rarer lifting essenceTo make the lord of earth but equal to his many sparrows?When will discovery help us to such conquest of the air,And teach us swifter travel than our creeps by land and water?"

And finally from my "Three Hundred Sonnets" hear Sonnet No. 189—

"Spirit.""Throw me from this tall cliff,—my wings are strong,The hurricane is raging fierce and high,My spirit pants, and all in heat I longTo fly right upward to a purer sky,And spurn the clouds beneath me rolling by;Lo thus, into the buoyant air I leapConfident and exulting, at a boundSwifter than whirlwinds happily to sweepOn fiery wing the reeling world around:Off with my fetters!—who shall hold me back?My path lies there,—the lightning's sudden trackO'er the blue concave of the fathomless deep,—O that I thus could conquer space and time,Soaring above this world in strength sublime!"

"Spirit."

"Throw me from this tall cliff,—my wings are strong,The hurricane is raging fierce and high,My spirit pants, and all in heat I longTo fly right upward to a purer sky,And spurn the clouds beneath me rolling by;Lo thus, into the buoyant air I leapConfident and exulting, at a boundSwifter than whirlwinds happily to sweepOn fiery wing the reeling world around:Off with my fetters!—who shall hold me back?My path lies there,—the lightning's sudden trackO'er the blue concave of the fathomless deep,—O that I thus could conquer space and time,Soaring above this world in strength sublime!"

I gave a second lecture, one on Luther, at the same place, and on the like solicitation of Mr. Le Fevre, President of the Balloon Society; the date being November 9, 1883.

Of this lecture, not to be tedious, I will here give only the peroration.

"And now, in conclusion, let us answer these reasonable questions: What has Martin Luther done and suffered that we at this distant interval of four centuries should reverence his memory with gratitude and admiration? What was the lifework he was raised up to do, and how did he do it? and what influence have his labours of old on the times in which we live?—We must remember that in the sixteenth century priestcraft had culminated to its rankest height of fraud, cruelty, vice, and superstition: the lay-folk everywhere were its serfs and victims, not to mention also numbers of the worthier clerics who hated but could, not break their bonds. Luther was the solitary champion to head and lead both the remonstrant layman and the better sort of monk up to the then well-nigh forlorn hope of combating Antichrist in his stronghold: Luther broke those chains for ever off the necks of groaning nations,—freeing to this day from that bitter bondage notalone Germany, Sweden, France, and England, but the very ends of the earth from America to China: without the energies of Luther nearly four hundred years ago, and the living spirit of Luther working in us now, we should be still in our own persons adding to the Book of Martyrs in the flames of the Inquisition, still immersed in blankest ignorance, with the Bible everywhere forbidden, and scientific research condemned, still cringing slaves at the feet of confessors who fraudulently sell absolution for money, still both spiritually and politically the mean vassals of an Italian priest instead of brave freemen under our English Queen. Luther relit the well-nigh, extinguished lamp of true religion, and it shines for him all the more gloriously to this hour: Luther refreshed the gospel salt that had through corruption lost its savour, until now it is more antiseptic than ever as the cure of evil, more purifying than ever as the quickener of good: Luther, under God's good grace and providence, has rescued the conscience and reason of our whole race from the thraldom of self-elected spiritual despots, who worked upon the superstitious fears of men as to another-world in order to strengthen their own power in this: Luther, for the result of his great labours, is more to us now than ever was the fabulous Hercules of old,—for he has cleansed the real Augæan stable,—more than any mythical William Tell,—for he has ensured the boon of everlasting liberty, more to us than a whole army of so-called heroes in conquest, patriotism, or even local philanthropy,—for the enemies he fought and vanquished were our spiritual foes,—the country he opened to us is the heavenly one,—the good-doing, he inaugurated is wide as the world, and shines anelectric universal threefold light of faith, hope, and charity."

Luther.Written by request, for the four-hundredth anniversary of his birth."Martin Luther! deathless name,Noblest on the scroll of Fame,Solitary monk,—that shookAll the world by God's own book;Antichrist's Davidian foe,Strong to lay Goliath low,Thee, in thy four-hundredth year,Gladly we remember here."How, without thy forceful mind,Now had fared all human kind,—Curst and scorch'd and chain'd by Rome,In each heart of hearth and home?But for thee, and thy grand hour,German light, and British power,With Columbia's faith and hope,All were crush'd beneath the Pope!"God be thank'd for this bright morn,When Eisleben's babe was born!For the pious peasant's son,Liberty's great fight hath won,—When at Wittenberg he stoodAll alone for God and good,And his Bible flew unfurl'd,Flag of freedom to the world!"

Luther.

Written by request, for the four-hundredth anniversary of his birth.

"Martin Luther! deathless name,Noblest on the scroll of Fame,Solitary monk,—that shookAll the world by God's own book;Antichrist's Davidian foe,Strong to lay Goliath low,Thee, in thy four-hundredth year,Gladly we remember here.

"How, without thy forceful mind,Now had fared all human kind,—Curst and scorch'd and chain'd by Rome,In each heart of hearth and home?But for thee, and thy grand hour,German light, and British power,With Columbia's faith and hope,All were crush'd beneath the Pope!

"God be thank'd for this bright morn,When Eisleben's babe was born!For the pious peasant's son,Liberty's great fight hath won,—When at Wittenberg he stoodAll alone for God and good,And his Bible flew unfurl'd,Flag of freedom to the world!"

The Reverend E. Bullinger set this to excellent music; and it was translated for Continental use into German, French, Swedish, and Hungarian in the same metre.

As quite a cognate subject here shall be added my ballad on Wycliffe, also written by request:—

Wycliffe."Distant beacon on the nightFull five centuries ago,—Harbinger of Luther's light,Now four hundred years aglow,—Priest of Lutterworth we seeAll of Luther-worth in thee!"Lo, the wondrous parallel,—Both gave Bibles to their land;While, the rage of Rome to quell,Princes stood on either hand,John of Gaunt, and Saxon John,Cheered each bold confessor on."Both are rescuers of souls,Cleansing those Augæan styes—Superstition's hiding holes,Nunneries and monkeries;Both gave liberty to men,Bearding lions in their den!"Wycliffe, Luther! glorious pair,Great Twin Brethren of mankind;Conscience was your guide and care,Purifying heart and mind;Both before your judges stood,'Here I stand, for God and good.'"Each had liv'd a martyr's life,Still protesting for the faith;Yet amid that fiery strife,Each escap'd the martyr's death;Rescued from the fangs of Rome,Both died peacefully at home."

Wycliffe.

"Distant beacon on the nightFull five centuries ago,—Harbinger of Luther's light,Now four hundred years aglow,—Priest of Lutterworth we seeAll of Luther-worth in thee!

"Lo, the wondrous parallel,—Both gave Bibles to their land;While, the rage of Rome to quell,Princes stood on either hand,John of Gaunt, and Saxon John,Cheered each bold confessor on.

"Both are rescuers of souls,Cleansing those Augæan styes—Superstition's hiding holes,Nunneries and monkeries;Both gave liberty to men,Bearding lions in their den!

"Wycliffe, Luther! glorious pair,Great Twin Brethren of mankind;Conscience was your guide and care,Purifying heart and mind;Both before your judges stood,'Here I stand, for God and good.'

"Each had liv'd a martyr's life,Still protesting for the faith;Yet amid that fiery strife,Each escap'd the martyr's death;Rescued from the fangs of Rome,Both died peacefully at home."

A few last words as to sundry life-experiences. Whether we notice it or not, we are guided and guarded and led on through many changes and chances to the gates of death in a marvellously predestined manner; if we pray about everything, we shall see and know that, as Pope says,

"In spite of wrong, in erring reason's spite,One truth is clear, whatever is, is right;"

and the trustful assurance that the highest wisdom and mercy and power orders all things will give us comfort under whatever circumstances. I believe in prayer as the universal panacea, philosophically as well as devoutly; and that "walking with God" is our highest wisdom as well as our deepest comfort.

Let no man think that a sick-bed is the best place to repent in. When the brain is clouded by bodily ailment there is neither capacity nor even will to mend matters; a man is at the best then tired, lazy, and dull, but if there is pain too all is worse. Listen to one of my old sonnets, and take its good advice:—

"Delay not, sinner, till the hour of painTo seek repentance: pain is absolute,Exacting all the body, all the brain,Humanity's stern king from head to foot:How canst thou pray, while fever'd arrows shootThrough this torn targe,—while every bone doth ache,And the soared mind raves up and down her cellRestless, and begging rest for mercy's sake?Add not to death the bitter fear of hell;Take pity on thy future self, poor man,While yet in strength thy timely wisdom can;Wrestle to-day with sin; and spare that strifeOf meeting all its terrors in the vanJust at the ebbing agony of life."

I have great faith in first impressions of intuitive liking or disliking. Second thoughts are by no means best always nor even often. Charity sometimes tries to induce, one to think better of such a person or such a situation than a first feeling shrinks from,—but it won't do for long: the man or the place will continue to be distasteful. My spirit apprehends instinctively the right and the true; and through life I have relied on intuitions; which some have called a rashness, recommending colder cautions; but these latter have seldom paid their way. A country parson was right in his diagnosis of Iscariot's character as that of "a low mean fellow;" and he judged reasonably that all the patient kindliness of One who strove to make such His "own familiar friend" was so much charity almost thrown away, except indeed as to spiritual improvement of the charitable.

It is right that in a book of self-revelations, like this genuine autobiography, some special recognition should be made before its close of gratitude to the Great Giver of all good, and of the spiritual longings of His penitent.These feelings I prefer to show after the author's poetic custom in verse. Let the first be a trilogy of unpublished sonnets lately written on

What We Shall Be.I."We—all and each—have faculties and powersHere undeveloped, lying deep within,Crush'd by the weight of circumstance and sin;Latent, as germs conceal their hidden flowers,Till some new clime, with genial suns and showersGive them the force consummate life to win:Even so we, poor prisoners of Time,Victims of others' evil and our own,Cannot expand in this tempestuous clime,But full of excellences in us sown,Must wait that better life, and there, full blown,In spiritual perfectness sublimeThe prizes of our nature we shall gain,Which now we struggle for in vain—in vain!"II."Who does not feel within him he could beAnything, everything, of great and good?That, give him but the chance, he could and wouldSoar on the wings of triumph strong and free?And think not this is vanity, for he,If one of Glory's heirs, is of the band'I said that ye are gods!'—on this we standThrough the eternal ages infinite,Growing like Christ in hope and love and lightAs grafted into Him: there shall we see,And know as we are known; no hindrance thenShall bind our wings, or shut our eyes or ears;Led upward, onward, through ten million years,We shall expand in spirit,—but still be Men."III."Each hath his specialty; we see in someMusic or painting, eloquence or skill,With, or without, an effort of the will,As by spontaneous inspiration comeEv'n in this mingled crowd of good and ill,To make us hail a Wonder:—but ElsewhereWithout or let or hindrance we shall useForces neglected here, but nurtured there;Till all the powers of every classic Muse,Ninefold, may dwell in each—as each may choose:Since Heaven for creatures must have creature gifts,Not only love, religion, gratitude,But also light, and every force that liftsMan's spirit to the heights of Great and Good."

What We Shall Be.

"We—all and each—have faculties and powersHere undeveloped, lying deep within,Crush'd by the weight of circumstance and sin;Latent, as germs conceal their hidden flowers,Till some new clime, with genial suns and showersGive them the force consummate life to win:Even so we, poor prisoners of Time,Victims of others' evil and our own,Cannot expand in this tempestuous clime,But full of excellences in us sown,Must wait that better life, and there, full blown,In spiritual perfectness sublimeThe prizes of our nature we shall gain,Which now we struggle for in vain—in vain!"

II.

"Who does not feel within him he could beAnything, everything, of great and good?That, give him but the chance, he could and wouldSoar on the wings of triumph strong and free?And think not this is vanity, for he,If one of Glory's heirs, is of the band'I said that ye are gods!'—on this we standThrough the eternal ages infinite,Growing like Christ in hope and love and lightAs grafted into Him: there shall we see,And know as we are known; no hindrance thenShall bind our wings, or shut our eyes or ears;Led upward, onward, through ten million years,We shall expand in spirit,—but still be Men."

III.

"Each hath his specialty; we see in someMusic or painting, eloquence or skill,With, or without, an effort of the will,As by spontaneous inspiration comeEv'n in this mingled crowd of good and ill,To make us hail a Wonder:—but ElsewhereWithout or let or hindrance we shall useForces neglected here, but nurtured there;Till all the powers of every classic Muse,Ninefold, may dwell in each—as each may choose:Since Heaven for creatures must have creature gifts,Not only love, religion, gratitude,But also light, and every force that liftsMan's spirit to the heights of Great and Good."

For a second take my recent open protest against the pestilential atheism so rife in our midst:—

I."My Father! everpresent, everwise, and everkind,—The Life that pulses at my heart, the Light within my mind,—My Maker, Guardian, Guide, and God, my never-failing Friend,Who hitherto hast blest me, and wilt bless me to the end,—How should I not acknowledge Thee in all my words and ways,And bring my doubts to Thee in prayer, the prayer that turns to praise?How can I cease to trust Thee, who hast guided me so long,And been from earliest childhood to old age my strength and song?II."My Father! Great Triunity! For Thou art One in Three,The mystery of mysteries, a threefold joy to me,—What deep delight to dwell upon the philosophic planOf Thy divine self-sacrifice in God becoming man,And taking on Thyself in Christ the sins and woes of allRedeemed to higher glory from the ruin of their fall,As humbled and enlightened and enlivened into love,By the Pure Spirit of sweet peace, the-heart-indwelling Dove!III."My Father, Abba, Father! For Thou callest me Thy child,As in Thy holy Jesus and Good Spirit reconciled,—O Father, in this evil day when atheism is foundDropping its poison seeds about in all our fallow-ground,Shall I keep coward silence, and ungenerously forgetThe Friend that hitherto hath helped me—and shall help me yet?Shall unbelief, all unabashed, proclaim that God is Not,—Nor faith with honest zeal be quick this hideous lie to blot?IV."Ho! Christian soldier,—to the front! and boldly speak aloudThe dear old truths denied by yonder Sadducean crowd,—That every inch and every instant we are guided wellBy Him who made, and loved, and loves us more than tongue can tell;That, though there be dread mysteries of cruelty and crime,And marvellous long-suffering patience with these wrongs of time,Still, wait a little longer, and we soon shall know the causeFor every seeming error in the Ruler's righteous laws!V."A little longer, and our faith and hope and works of loveShall reap munificent reward in those blest orbs above,Where He (who being God of old became our brother here)Shall welcome us and speed us on' from glorious sphere to sphere,Until before His Father's throne the Spirit with the SonShall give to every Christian then the crown his Lord hath won;And through the ages in all worlds our wondrous ransomed raceShall bless the Universal King of Providence and Grace!"

"My Father! everpresent, everwise, and everkind,—The Life that pulses at my heart, the Light within my mind,—My Maker, Guardian, Guide, and God, my never-failing Friend,Who hitherto hast blest me, and wilt bless me to the end,—How should I not acknowledge Thee in all my words and ways,And bring my doubts to Thee in prayer, the prayer that turns to praise?How can I cease to trust Thee, who hast guided me so long,And been from earliest childhood to old age my strength and song?

II.

"My Father! Great Triunity! For Thou art One in Three,The mystery of mysteries, a threefold joy to me,—What deep delight to dwell upon the philosophic planOf Thy divine self-sacrifice in God becoming man,And taking on Thyself in Christ the sins and woes of allRedeemed to higher glory from the ruin of their fall,As humbled and enlightened and enlivened into love,By the Pure Spirit of sweet peace, the-heart-indwelling Dove!

III.

"My Father, Abba, Father! For Thou callest me Thy child,As in Thy holy Jesus and Good Spirit reconciled,—O Father, in this evil day when atheism is foundDropping its poison seeds about in all our fallow-ground,Shall I keep coward silence, and ungenerously forgetThe Friend that hitherto hath helped me—and shall help me yet?Shall unbelief, all unabashed, proclaim that God is Not,—Nor faith with honest zeal be quick this hideous lie to blot?

IV.

"Ho! Christian soldier,—to the front! and boldly speak aloudThe dear old truths denied by yonder Sadducean crowd,—That every inch and every instant we are guided wellBy Him who made, and loved, and loves us more than tongue can tell;That, though there be dread mysteries of cruelty and crime,And marvellous long-suffering patience with these wrongs of time,Still, wait a little longer, and we soon shall know the causeFor every seeming error in the Ruler's righteous laws!

"A little longer, and our faith and hope and works of loveShall reap munificent reward in those blest orbs above,Where He (who being God of old became our brother here)Shall welcome us and speed us on' from glorious sphere to sphere,Until before His Father's throne the Spirit with the SonShall give to every Christian then the crown his Lord hath won;And through the ages in all worlds our wondrous ransomed raceShall bless the Universal King of Providence and Grace!"

For a third, my testimony as to the wonders that surround us: I havecalled this poem The Infinities.

I."Lift up your eyes to yon star-jewelled sky,Gaze on that firmament caverned on high,—Marvellous universe, infinite space,Studded with suns in fixt order and place,Each with its system of planets unseen,Meshed in their orbits by comets between,Worlds that are vaster than mind may believe,Whirling more swiftly than thought can conceive,O ye immensities! Who shall declareThe glory of God in His galaxies there?II."Look too on this poor planet of ours,Torn by the storms of mysterious powers,Evil contending with good from its birth,Wrenching in battle the heartstrings of earth,—Ah! what infinities circle us here,Strangeness and wonderment swathing the sphere!Providence ruleth with care most minute,Yet is fell cruelty torturing the mute,Infinite marvels of wrong and of right,Blessing and blasting each day and each night.III."All things in mystery; riddles unread;Nothing but dimness of guesses instead;Only beginning, where none see the end,Nor where these infinite energies tend;Saving that chrysalis-creatures are we,Till we grow wings in that æon-to-be!Everything infinite: Nature, and Art,The schemes of man's mind, and the throbs of his heart;Infinite cravings for better, and best,Tempered by infinite longings for rest.IV."Then, as the telescope's miracle drewInfinite Heaven's vast worlds into view,So doth the microscope's marvel displayInfinite atomies, wondrous as they!A mere drop of water, a bubble of air,Teems with perfections of littleness there;Infinite wisdom in exquisite worksAll but invisible everywhere lurks,While we confess as in great so in small,Infinite skill in the Maker of all.V."And there be grander infinities still,Where, in Emmanuel, good has quench'd ill;Infinite humbleness, highest and first,Choosing the doom of the lowest and worst;Infinite pity, and patience,—how long?Infinite justice, avenging all wrong,Infinite purity, wisdom, and skill,Bettering good through each effort of ill,Infinite beauty and infinite love,Shining around and beneath and above!"

"Lift up your eyes to yon star-jewelled sky,Gaze on that firmament caverned on high,—Marvellous universe, infinite space,Studded with suns in fixt order and place,Each with its system of planets unseen,Meshed in their orbits by comets between,Worlds that are vaster than mind may believe,Whirling more swiftly than thought can conceive,O ye immensities! Who shall declareThe glory of God in His galaxies there?

II.

"Look too on this poor planet of ours,Torn by the storms of mysterious powers,Evil contending with good from its birth,Wrenching in battle the heartstrings of earth,—Ah! what infinities circle us here,Strangeness and wonderment swathing the sphere!Providence ruleth with care most minute,Yet is fell cruelty torturing the mute,Infinite marvels of wrong and of right,Blessing and blasting each day and each night.

III.

"All things in mystery; riddles unread;Nothing but dimness of guesses instead;Only beginning, where none see the end,Nor where these infinite energies tend;Saving that chrysalis-creatures are we,Till we grow wings in that æon-to-be!Everything infinite: Nature, and Art,The schemes of man's mind, and the throbs of his heart;Infinite cravings for better, and best,Tempered by infinite longings for rest.

IV.

"Then, as the telescope's miracle drewInfinite Heaven's vast worlds into view,So doth the microscope's marvel displayInfinite atomies, wondrous as they!A mere drop of water, a bubble of air,Teems with perfections of littleness there;Infinite wisdom in exquisite worksAll but invisible everywhere lurks,While we confess as in great so in small,Infinite skill in the Maker of all.

"And there be grander infinities still,Where, in Emmanuel, good has quench'd ill;Infinite humbleness, highest and first,Choosing the doom of the lowest and worst;Infinite pity, and patience,—how long?Infinite justice, avenging all wrong,Infinite purity, wisdom, and skill,Bettering good through each effort of ill,Infinite beauty and infinite love,Shining around and beneath and above!"

And let this simple hymn be the old man's last prayer, bridging over the long interval of well-nigh fourscore years between cradle and grave with a child's first piety:—

Love and Life."'My son, give Me thine heart;'Yes, Abba, Father, yes!Perfect in goodness as Thou art,I will not give Thee less."But I am dark and dead,And need Thy grace to live;Father, on me Thy Spirit shed,To me that sunshine give!"Thus only can I sayWhen Thou dost ask my love,I will return in earth's poor wayThy gift from heaven above."There is no good in meBut droppeth from on high,Then quicken me with life from Thee,That I may never die."For if I am a son—O grace beyond compare!—A child of God, with Jesus one,In Him I stand an heir;"In Him I live and move,And only so can giveAn immortality of love,To Thee by whom I live."Then melt this heart of stone,And grant the heart of flesh,That all I am may be Thine own,Renewed to love afresh."

Love and Life.

"'My son, give Me thine heart;'Yes, Abba, Father, yes!Perfect in goodness as Thou art,I will not give Thee less.

"But I am dark and dead,And need Thy grace to live;Father, on me Thy Spirit shed,To me that sunshine give!

"Thus only can I sayWhen Thou dost ask my love,I will return in earth's poor wayThy gift from heaven above.

"There is no good in meBut droppeth from on high,Then quicken me with life from Thee,That I may never die.

"For if I am a son—O grace beyond compare!—A child of God, with Jesus one,In Him I stand an heir;

"In Him I live and move,And only so can giveAn immortality of love,To Thee by whom I live.

"Then melt this heart of stone,And grant the heart of flesh,That all I am may be Thine own,Renewed to love afresh."

About the much-vexed question of Eschatology and the final state of the dead, I have long since grown to the happy doctrine of Eternal Hope—ultimately for all; perhaps even siding with Burns, who (as the only logical way of eliminating evil) gives a chance to the "puir Deil:" albeit the path for some must be through the terrible Gehenna of fire to purify, and with few stripes or many to satisfy conscience and evoke character. As for that text in Ecclesiastes about the "tree lying where it fell," commonly supposed to prove an unchanging state for ever,—it is obvious to answer that when a treeiscut down, its final course of usefulness only thenbegins, by being sawn up and converted into furniture; much as when a human being's work here is finished, he is taken hence to be utilised elsewhere. Everlasting progress is the law of our existence, whether here or elsewhere,—no stopping, far less annihilation. And then the character of our Maker is Love, this Love having satisfied Justice by self-sacrifice, and nothing is more reiterated in the Psalms than that "His mercy endureth for ever;" which cannot be true if bodies and spirits—even of the wicked—are to be condemned by Him to endless torment. Adequate punishment, and that for the wretched creature's own improvement, is only in accordance with the voice of reason, and the voice of inspired wisdom too; for though our Lord Christ warns against a fearful retribution (involved in the phrase of "the undying worm and the unquenchable fire," as He was looking over the wall of Jerusalem into Tophet and the valley of Hinnom where the offal from the thousands of sacrifices was perpetually rotting and being burned, so taking his parable from an incident, as usual)—He yet "went and preached after death to the spirits in prison," probably to those who were then enduring some such purgatorial punishment. After all, this sentence of King Solomon as to a fallen tree, so often misapplied, is not one of the higher forms of inspiration; even St. Paul qualifies his own sometimes; and there are several disputable texts in Proverbs: and, if taken literally for exposition, we all must admit that the felling, of a tree is the immediate precursor to its further life of usefulness. Let us, then, rationally hope that the dead in Christ will be improved from good to better and best; and that even those who have failed to live for Him in this world may by some purifyingeducation in the next come finally to the happy far-off end of being saved by Him at last.

The words everlasting and forever are continually used in Scripture to indicate a long time,—not necessarily an eternity (see Cruden for many proofs). Moreover, if all hope of improvement ends with this life (a doctrine in which such extremes as Atheism and Calvinism strangely agree), what becomes of all the commonest forms of humanity, its intermediate failures, too bad for a heaven and too good for a hell; to say less of insane, idiotic, and other helpless creatures; and the millions of the untaught in Christendom, who never have had a chance, and billions of the Heathen brutalised through the ages by birth and evil custom? Yes; for all there must be in the near hereafter continuous new chances of improvement and hopes of better life.

There is one poem in the volume superadded to my Dramatics which I will introduce here, as it is quite atour de forcein its way of double rhyming throughout, and has, moreover, excellent moral uses: so I wish it read more widely.

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