The experiences of this visit to the sacred scenes of Bible story left an enduring impression on William Nelson’s mind; and their special character in association with his own early training justify some detail in reference to researches otherwise only possessed of personal interest. As a traveller, he made no pretension to geographical exploration or scientific research; and unless when in company with one from whom he could derive information, he rarely referred to his experiences while abroad. His longest journeys were regarded by himself as only extended holiday rambles. But they were carried out with characteristic zeal; and some of the incidents which may be gleaned from them have their biographical value in so far as they disclose traits of personal character. He made his way by the desert route from Palestine toEgypt, where he spent his Christmas in Grand Cairo, and commenced the ascent of the Nile early in the following January. His fellow-traveller in the latter country, Major MacEnery, furnishes some interesting reminiscences of their voyage up the Nile. “I preserve a lively memory,” he writes, “of the unvarying geniality of our companion, and of his spirit of exploration. In this respect he was truly remarkable; indefatigable in the pursuit of information concerning even the minutest object of interest within reach; never satisfied without a personal inspection, when at all possible; neither hunger, thirst, nor fatigue deterring him from the gratification of being able to say conscientiously, ‘I have seen it.’ ”
The impressions left on the traveller’s mind by the scenes of special interest in the Holy Land, and some of the incidents which their memory recalled, were a frequent source of pleasure to his friends in after years. Some of them indeed enjoyed more tangible memorials, in the shape of inscribed tablets of the wood of the Mount of Olives; a carved memento of the Dead Sea fashioned from its black volcanic rock; a gold shekel,—subsequently deposited by Mr. James Campbell in the Presbyterian Theological College at Montreal,—and other like gifts. Nor were the attractions of the land of the Pharaohs less keenly appreciated. It had its ancient memories, both sacred and profane, alike interestingto the intelligent explorer. There were the works of Pharaohs of older centuries than Moses or Joseph; the walls of Abu-Simbul, graven by the son of Theokles with their Hellenic record centuries before the Father of History began his task; the Thebes of the Hundred Gates, with its magnificent ruins authenticating Homer’s verse; and Ptolemaic and Roman remains, modern by comparison. For all this the traveller’s early training had unconsciously prepared him; and every feature was calculated to revive the archæological tastes which found so many votaries among the members of the “Juvenile Literary Society.” He ascended the Nile to the Second Cataract, and gleaned some choice antiques from the relics with which the poor fellaheen tempt the traveller in that cradle-land of the world’s civilization. Those included Osirian figures bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions, one especially with the cartouch of an early Pharaoh; a brick from Thebes, stamped with the cartouch of Thothmes III.; a porcelain stamp similarly inscribed; and other prized memorials. Above all, he had gazed with delight on the monuments of a long-vanished civilization, and explored with curious interest scenes associated with the Bible stories learned by him at his mother’s knee. His inquisitive research was constantly on the alert, and the same thorough-going energy characterized him as a traveller and a man of business.But along with all this, one exceptional trait may be noted, eminently characteristic of the man. A letter addressed to him from Cairo by Abdallah, his old Egyptian dragoman, which reached Edinburgh soon after his death, recalled the fact that his faithful servitor had been the annual recipient of a kindly remittance through all the years since they voyaged together up the Nile. Abdallah writes with a borrowed pen: “I have received your kind letter with the five pounds, and was very happy to hear that you are in perfect health, with your dearest family and with your friends. I always think of you, and beg God to be with you and spare you. All my friends are very thankful for your great kindness to me. I hope some day some gentleman of your friends come I shall have the honour to serve him.” For his remembrance of the faithful dragoman had been practically shown, not only by pecuniary remittances, but also by recommending him to other travellers, until poor Abdallah’s creditors pounced upon the baggage of Dr. Henry Field, to whose service he had been commended, and so his prospects as a dragoman were ruined. In writing to Major MacEnery in May 1886, Mr. Nelson says: “I had a letter not long ago from poor old Abdallah. It was just the old story of his being unable to do anything in the way of earning a livelihood. He sent me a letter addressed to the LordMareof London, an old fellow-traveller in the Holy Land, which I duly delivered to his lordship; but he did not take the hint and give me something for the poor dragoman.”
The experiences of the traveller were occasionally turned to account in unexpected ways in after years, when dealing with his own work-people. One instance was recalled in an address, already referred to, delivered at Parkside soon after his death. On the introduction of a greatly improved sewing-machine at Hope Park much opposition was excited among the girls, who unanimously protested in favour of the old-fashioned, familiar instrument. Thereupon Mr. Nelson humorously told them that they reminded him of the difficulties among the Arabs engaged in digging the Suez Canal. They had at first scooped out the sand into baskets, which they carried on their heads, and so transported the soil to the new embankments. This process was much too slow for the contractors, who accordingly provided them with shovels and wheel-barrows. But when the latter were filled, the Arabs could not be persuaded to trundle them in the ordinary way, but hoisted the wheel-barrows on their heads, and so trudged along to the place of deposit!
The unfamiliar scenes and incidents of Eastern life, both in Egypt and Palestine, had made a deep impression on William Nelson’s mind, and were frequentlyrecalled. The letter to Major MacEnery, his old fellow-voyager on the Nile, in which he refers to his dragoman, Abdallah, was written at a time when the first news of the troubles in the Soudan was awakening attention at home; and, recalling his old experiences, he remarks: “How strange it is that the Arabs in the Soudan should be troubling our troops there at Koshi, our most advanced post from Wady Halfi. I was under the impression that it would have been impossible for them to have advanced in anything like a formidable body so far north. But those wild sons of the desert can live almost upon air, and go about like clouds of locusts; and as they are not troubled with artillery or other impediments, they may cause us some trouble, more especially as they are animated with fanatical zeal against the infidels, and they do not know when they are beaten.”
The traveller brought back with him a duly attested document bearing the seal of the Holy Sepulchre (a cross potence and crosslets), furnished to Gulielmus Nelson by the prior of the Latin convent in Jerusalem, in his quality of guardian of the Holy Sepulchre, attesting that he had in an edifying spirit visited the sacred places around the Holy City; and had indeed conformed to the requirements of a devout pilgrim to an extent which, if literally true, would have been in strange antagonism to all his early training. For theveracious prior of the Convent of St. Salvator certifies over his official seal that the aforesaid Gulielmus Nelson had not only visited the principal sanctuaries, but that “with great devotion he had heard mass in them all”!
A more genuine reminiscence of travel, with which the pilgrim surprised his friends, was the novel feature of a fine black beard, the imposing effect of which probably had its share in the opinion formed by the Syrian peasants that he was a learned leech. Commenting long after on the reputed virtues of some much-vaunted pills, he said they were no doubt as efficacious as those he used to make in Palestine. The villagers flocked to his tent, importuning him and his companions for medicine. With much gravity he distributed among them the pills he had fashioned out of the spare breakfast loaf; and, with the faith of the recipients in his prescriptions, supplemented as they doubtless were in cases of actual suffering by a liberalbackshish, he had no doubt that he effected as many cures as some of the patent-medicine vendors. As to the black beard, the custom in that respect has so entirely changed since then that it is difficult for the present generation to realize the astonishment which the strange appendage excited. To some grave elders it almost appeared as if he had literally cast in his lot with the followers of the false prophet. The idea ofeven a moustache as the possible appendage of a civilian first dawned on the English mind when Prince Albert set the fashion in society. But this innovation was viewed with suspicion among all sober denizens of the mart. As to the wearing of a beard, it would have been sufficient to ruin the credit of the most reputable trader. There is a report in “The Dial,” from the pen of Emerson, of a grand convention of enthusiasts held at Boston a few years before. “If,” says he, “the assembly was disorderly, it was picturesque. Mad men, mad women,men with beards, Dunkers, Muggeltonians, Come-outers!”—and so the enumeration of the eccentric medley proceeds. The beard, as is obvious, was an innovation beyond all tolerance. But the art of photography, in its earlier form of ambrotype, was in vogue. The traveller accordingly had his portrait taken in his Eastern dress, with moustache, beard, and long pipe. Some time after, when showing to a friend the relics he had brought from the East, he produced along with them the portrait, and asked what he thought of the Egyptian pasha. To his extreme amusement, his friend exclaimed, “What a bloodthirsty look that fellow has in his face!”
It is abundantly manifest that at that date, whatever might be thought of the beard, it could not be worn in the Hope Park counting-house during businesshours. Before, however, its sacrifice to the prudery of that decorous, clean-shaven generation, a party of old schoolmates, of whom the present writer was one, assembled at his dinner-table. The host received us in the flowing robes of an Arab sheik; and with his turban and fine beard, looked as though he might have sat with Abraham at the tent door. In the course of the evening a tempting-looking bottle was produced, with the announcement that it had been brought from the Holy Land; and this he commended so zealously as to put some of the knowing ones on the alert. Each filled his glass as the bottle passed round, took a sip, and then watched its progress; till a rash young toper swallowed the major contents of his glass at a gulp, and then, amid roars of laughter, began coughing, sputtering, and anathematizing the potation. For the seductive bottle was filled with water brought by our host from the Dead Sea: a sulphureous, briny draught fit only for the revellers of Gomorrah.
The enduring impressions left on the mind of William Nelson by his visit to the Holy Land found expression, in long subsequent years, in a well-known work, “The Land and the Book,” which in its final form embraced: 1. Palestine and Jerusalem; 2. Lebanon, Damascus, and Beyond the Jordan; and 3. Central Palestine and Phœnicia. The Rev. W. M. Thomson was commissioned to explore the sacred scenes of Bible story, witha view to the production of a work that should furnish for others somewhat of the vivid realizations that William Nelson had experienced in his own visit to the land
“Over whose acres walked those blessed feetThat eighteen hundred years ago were nailedFor our redemption to the bitter cross.”
“Over whose acres walked those blessed feetThat eighteen hundred years ago were nailedFor our redemption to the bitter cross.”
“Over whose acres walked those blessed feetThat eighteen hundred years ago were nailedFor our redemption to the bitter cross.”
The following extract from a letter written in July 1880 to his old schoolfellow, Dr. Simpson, refers to the volume as then in progress, and to the perils from which the manuscript had been so unexpectedly rescued:—
“We are not out yet with the new volume of ‘The Land and the Book,’ and I do not expect that it will be ready for publication before the middle of next month. It is a truly superb work, and it has been got up regardless of expense. It will, when completed, form three volumes. Strange to say, the manuscript of one of them, ‘Egypt, Mount Sinai, and the Desert,’ turned up the other day after we had given it up as having been destroyed at our great fire, with many other valuable manuscripts. But, fortunately, it was in one of the drawers of a writing-desk which had escaped the devouring flames, and the manuscript was discovered quite unexpectedly, after the author had for a long time been informed of the loss that had been sustained.”
THE year 1843 is a memorable one in Scottish history. The controversy between the two parties into which the National Church was divided had been concentrated for years on the old question of patronage, or the right of the people to the free choice of their clergymen. Under the leadership of Dr. Chalmers, in co-operation with an able body of clergy and laymen, enactments were passed by the Church courts restoring to the people their rights in the choice of pastors. Influential patrons acquiesced in its operation, and the sanguine hope was entertained that a peaceful solution of the grievance which had long been a source of bitterness had at length been arrived at. But in the famous Auchterarder case the civil courts were appealed to; the action of the General Assembly, the supreme court of the Church, was overruled; and on the 18th of May 1843 four hundred and seventy-four ministers of the Church of Scotland voluntarily resigned their livings, and cast themselves on theliberality of their people. Ten years of conflict, marked with an ever-increasing intensity of feeling, and with all the inevitable fruits of embittered controversy, had ended in the disruption of the National Church. It was an event without a parallel since the ejection from their benefices of upwards of two thousand ministers of the English National Church in 1662 by the Act of Uniformity.
It is difficult for the present generation to fully estimate the feeling which the Disruption called forth, or the bitter antagonism which in many cases it engendered. The early training and all the strong personal convictions of William Nelson alike determined his sympathy with what claimed to be “The Free Church of Scotland.” The movement which led to this result had appeared to him, as to others, to furnish a practical solution of the difficulties which held his Covenanting fathers aloof from the National Church. The financial question was an important one, and long continued to be so; for not only churches but colleges had to be built, theological professorships to be endowed, poor congregations to be sustained, and the foreign mission field provided for. In all this work William Nelson was a generous co-operator; and to the close of his life he continued to respond with unstinted liberality to all the claims which it involved. His brother John, who became the esteemed pastor ofthe Free West Church of Greenock, was referred to after his premature death, in an eloquent tribute by Professor Blaikie, as “one whose natural gifts were of a high order, and whose early position as a student was most distinguished. He was known to be of far too independent a nature to fall into any line merely because it was traditional or conventionally proper. He had courage and capacity to strike out for himself; and he had spent much time in study in Germany at a time when few students went thither, and when such a course was regarded as somewhat suspicious.” The old Covenanting blood was in his veins; but he had hoped that the National Church was resuming its fidelity to the faith of his fathers, when the Disruption came, and he cast in his lot with the champions of freedom. Personal sympathy, therefore, as well as strong convictions, enlisted William Nelson on the side of the Free Church; but he never was a partisan. No trace of bitterness sullied the earnest zeal with which he promoted the cause that he had at heart. His convictions were clear, and his devotion to the Church unwavering; but this was never allowed to interfere with his personal relations to those who adhered to the Established Church, nor with his response to appeals made by them to his liberality. The testimony to this effect was freely given when his death recalled the incidents of earlier years. Among memoranda furnishedto me by Mr. John Miller of Glasgow is the following note: “My sole companion in the railway carriage on my return to Glasgow, after attending Mr. Nelson’s funeral, was a stranger, a clergyman of the Established Church, who had travelled to Edinburgh on the same melancholy errand. In conversation I learned that Mr. Nelson and another to whom he referred had been friends of his from their earliest years. But at the Disruption they both became members of the Free Church. Thereupon, as the clergyman said, his unnamed friend took umbrage at him for remaining in the Established Church, and their friendship ceased. It is not easy now to understand the bitterness of feeling that existed at that time between those who took different views on the question of the relation between Church and State; but as regards Mr. Nelson, such was his breadth of mind and catholic spirit, it never made the slightest change on their friendship through all the intervening years, and he spoke of him ‘as the best of all good men he had known.’ ”
But his broad-minded charity was in no degree traceable to latitudinarian indifference. His convictions were strong, and when occasion required it, were maintained with firmness, and defended with incisive keenness of argument. And here it may be well to note a characteristic trait. Few men were ever more notably marked by transparent sincerity and truthfulness.If a truth told against his cause, it never occurred to him to withhold it. There was indeed an amusing simplicity in the manner in which he would disclose a fact seeming to reflect on his own party or on himself; or, when in company with persons disposed to arrogate to themselves rank or social position, he would recall some homely incident or experience of his own early life. But the same instinctive love of truth made him intolerant of cant, or of any evasion in reference to matters of faith. If he were perplexed with doubts, as he often was, in reference to the modern conflict between science and revelation, he would give abrupt utterance to them in the most orthodox circles; and if any attempt were made to evade or gloss over the difficulty, his blunt reassertion of the point at issue, in all its literal nakedness, was at times misunderstood and even bitterly resented. Sanctimonious hypocrisy, or anything savouring of insincerity in religion, was abhorrent to his nature, and provoked his keenest ridicule. For his sense of humour was great, and he would expose pretentious inconsistencies in their most ludicrous aspect, giving no little offence at times to clerical offenders. To this habit of giving expression of his convictions with all unguarded sincerity is, no doubt, to be ascribed the remark in a letter of one of his oldest Christian friends, when bearing testimony to the earnestness with which in his last illness “he gaveproof that he had attained by God’s help to true faith in the Son of God, and was conscious of having definitely accepted him as his personal Saviour, and given himself over to him on the warrant of God’s own word of invitation.” The writer, a devoted clergyman of the Free Church, adds: “There was an entire absence of the old levity, which you will remember used sometimes almost to shock and sadden even his best friends.”
It was perhaps a want of tact,—a diplomatic element apt at times to verge on insincerity in which he was certainly deficient,—that led to his being so misjudged. But the same unconscious indifference to the prejudices of others could be seen when, among strangers at a public hotel or on the ocean, he would ask a blessing before dinner with the same earnest reverence as at his own table. The impression which his manner of saying grace produced on a stranger is thus expressed in a letter from an English lady, who, after his death, recalled the memories of more than one sojourn under his hospitable roof: “One always felt cheered in his presence by the glow of his great heart and that sweet genial kindness to all which was like sunshine in the room. I also greatly admired that dislike of any praise of himself which one always saw in him, and which is so rare.... I so well remember in the Philiphaugh drawing-room before dinner his kindly talk tous all, and his almost boyish fun: so interested in every one, and saying playful things to me about palmistry, etc. But when we went in to dinner, I was always struck with his unusual way of saying grace: the reverence that came over him, as if he were actually speaking to God, and as though from his heart he was simply grateful day by day for each gift of the heavenly Father. I can almost hear again as I write the rich deep tones of his voice as he asked the blessing, and prayed that God would graciously take away all our sins. I have never heard a clergyman, or any other person, who so impressed me with reverence and reality in saying grace as he did.” This feeling was by no means singular. In a letter from Professor T. Grainger Stewart, a similar reference occurs to “his mode of asking a blessing.” Alluding to his wife, Professor Stewart says: “We were both greatly impressed with the earnestness and reverence with which he spoke, and on our way home talked of it to one another.”
To one in whom the influences of early training had thus been confirmed by the personal convictions of later years, the responsibilities of his influence as a publisher were keenly realized. The system which he developed was based on the anticipated sale of large editions at low prices. Hence an important class of works issued by some eminent publishing houses incostly editions of from eight to twelve hundred copies lay entirely beyond the range of his publications. But the imprint of Thomas Nelson and Sons became ere long the guarantee for a pure, high-toned literature, admirably adapted for the special requirements of the school library and the home circle; and as success crowned the system of large and cheap editions, works of more permanent value were issued on the same plan.
The uniformity of the testimony to his integrity and business capacity borne by many whose relations with him were widely dissimilar removes all idea of exaggeration; while the terms in which they write of him are so diverse from the ordinary commendations of the mart or the exchange, as to show in a striking manner the influence exercised by an altogether exceptional character in the ordinary relations of business. Mr. Robertson, who was long his manager in New York, thus writes: “During the many years I had the privilege of knowing Mr. Nelson, I was increasingly drawn towards him by his strict integrity, his kindliness, his splendid energy, his intellectual activity, and his unostentatious piety. There was no duty so humble that he would not stoop to perform it; there was no amount of hard work or fatigue that ever turned him away from his purpose. There was no appeal ever made to him by the suffering or poverty-stricken that did not meet with a kindly and sympathetic response.There was in him a fine appreciation of merit, regardless of the social status of its possessor; and although he would have been unwilling to admit it, there was in him a Christ-like going about continually doing good which was simply beautiful.” This affectionate respect which he awakened in all who were brought into intimate relations with him as his trusted agents is constantly apparent. His confidence when once secured was implicit; and any breach of trust or neglect of duty was a source of intense pain to him, wholly apart from any idea of personal loss.
The following characteristic reminiscences are derived from notes furnished by Mr. John Miller, whose business transactions with Mr. Nelson, as a large paper manufacturer, brought them into frequent intercourse: “Mr. Nelson had an immense aptitude for the despatch of business, and great promptness of decision, never wasting any time talking over bargains. When a paper-maker called and showed him a sample, if it was not to his mind, or the price too high, he would in the most courteous manner thank him for the sample, but he would in no way depreciate the paper. If the paper was right, he would say, ‘Well, it is just the price we are paying;’ or if the price were better, he would frankly say, ‘It is a little better than the price we are buying at. I shall give you an order; and if you can maintain the quality at the price, we shall continue toorder from you.’ There was never any second bargain at settlement. If the paper sent was not according to sample, it would be paid for without remark, and no further orders given. Mr. Nelson had no time and no disposition to haggle over a bargain, and no man could better appreciate value. He was in every respect a very capable man of business. After his marriage he began to take business a little more leisurely; at all events, he seemed to take more time for the little courtesies of life, which were so greatly developed in his after years.”
He had proved himself a true captain of industry; organized his extensive business on the most systematic basis; gathered around him a body of skilled and trusty workmen, on whose loyal co-operation he could rely; and having thus, with prudent foresight, surmounted the many impediments that had inevitably beset his way, he turned aside from the anxieties of business to make for himself a home, in which all the congenial elements of a singularly emotional and sensitive nature should thenceforth find free scope for development. He retained to the close of his life his interest in the multitudinous details of the printing and publishing works; but he found time for the gratification of many refined tastes, and for a practical sympathy in public questions, as well as in the exercise of an open-handed beneficence, the full extent of which has only been revealed since his death.
The new life of which marriage is the source began for William Nelson when he was in his thirty-sixth year. On the 24th of July 1851, Catherine Inglis, the daughter of Robert Inglis, Esquire of Kirkmay, Fifeshire, a descendant of Sir James Inglis, Bart., of Cramond, gave her hand, with her heart in it, to William Nelson. The marriage took place at the old mansion of Kirkmay, acquired by her father, with the estates of Sypsis and Kirkmay, on his return from a highly successful career in India. The maternal grandfather of the bride had seen long service there; and letters preserved by the family show that he was held in high esteem by Lord Cornwallis, and was the trusted and confidential friend of Warren Hastings. One of them, addressed to him while he was Resident at the Court of Scindia, is an amusing example of epistolary conciseness in preferring an unusual request; and as such was peculiarly germane to William Nelson’s tastes, as well as to his sense of humour. His fondness for animals manifested itself at times in odd ways, and had he received any encouragement the pleasure grounds at Salisbury Green would have been apt to assume the character of a zoological garden. When travelling in California in 1870, along with Mrs. Nelson, he was reluctantly dissuaded from bringing off with him as a novel pet a “gofer,” or beautifully striped species of lizard, which an Indian offered for sale. Here was astill more unmanageable pet in request by the old Indian viceroy in his letter to the grandfather of the bride:—
Benares,14th March, 1784.“Dear Sir,—If you can possibly contrive to procure for me a young lion of a size which may be carried over rocky and mountainous roads, I shall be much obliged to you. I want to gratify the eager desire which has been expressed by the ruler of Tibet to have one in his possession; the people of this country having a religious veneration for a lion, of which they know nothing but in the doubtful and fabulous relations of their own books.—I am, dear sir, yours affectionately,“Warren Hastings.“To Lieutenant James Anderson.”
Benares,14th March, 1784.
“Dear Sir,—If you can possibly contrive to procure for me a young lion of a size which may be carried over rocky and mountainous roads, I shall be much obliged to you. I want to gratify the eager desire which has been expressed by the ruler of Tibet to have one in his possession; the people of this country having a religious veneration for a lion, of which they know nothing but in the doubtful and fabulous relations of their own books.—I am, dear sir, yours affectionately,
“Warren Hastings.
“To Lieutenant James Anderson.”
But this ancestral reminiscence carries us far afield from the wedding-party at Kirkmay House, where the bride was given away by her brother, who had then succeeded to the estate; and so the old home was exchanged for one which she gladdened through all the happy years till that inevitable parting which every wedded union involves. Thenceforth life had for William Nelson a deeper meaning, and was passed in the quiet centre of a sunlight all his own, till he reached beyond the limit of the threescore years and ten.
The biographer must ever feel that he executes a delicate trust in drawing aside the curtain that veils the sanctities of home life. But here there was nothing to conceal. A friend who met Mr. and Mrs. Nelson at a German spa twenty years later thus writes: “I was greatly interested in watching him as he, with all the attention and devotion of a lover, refilled and carried the glass of water to his wife, and tended on her, then an invalid, with untiring care.” And so it continued to be to the close. Thirty-six years of happy wedded union glided by. Daughters in time followed their mother’s example, and left the old home to make new centres of happiness. Eveline, the eldest, was married in 1874 to Professor Annandale, Professor of Surgery in the University of Edinburgh; and in 1886 her sister Florence became the wife of S. Fraser MacLeod, Esquire, barrister, London, a friend of the family from early boyhood. By-and-by the little grandchildren presented themselves to claim their mothers’ places in the hearts of those who had found it hard to reconcile themselves to the blanks round the old hearth, where Meta and Alice still remained, with their brother Frederick, to play the newrôleof uncle and aunts. The home of the Nelsons at Salisbury Green was familiar to many through all those years as a rare centre of genial hospitality, with some unique features of its own worthy of further note.
THE unique site of the Scottish capital, embosomed in hills and looking out upon the sea, furnishes many charming nooks for suburban residence to its denizens; but among such the Nelsons’ home stood in some respects unrivalled. Salisbury Green, a jointure house of the Prestonfield family, when purchased in 1770 by Lady Dick Cunningham, had, according to the traditions of the family, a ghost as its sole tenant; and notwithstanding the genial hospitalities, and all the brightness and beauty of its home-life in later years, the venerable ghost, a lady of grim visage, in antique coif and farthingale, continued to flit at rare intervals about her old haunts, and drew the curtains of fair young dreamers who had invaded her precincts. It was a plain old-fashioned house, though already graced with some of the undesigned picturesqueness due to additions of various dates, when William Nelson acquired the property in 1860. But, with his keen eye for beauty, he discerned at once the capabilities of theplace, embosomed in stately trees, and commanding a view of almost unmatched grandeur and beauty.
Under his tasteful care, the old house was renovated, assuming externally the picturesque features of the domestic architecture of Scotland in the sixteenth century; and in accordance with the practice of the age of the Reformation, he carved round the entablature this apt motto, from the third chapter of Hebrews, “Every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is god.” Internally the drawing-room, an addition of its earlier proprietors, was a reproduction, in style and proportions, of that of Barley Wood, the charming abode of the amiable and gifted Hannah More. The house, so familiar to many strangers from other lands as well as to the citizens of Edinburgh, by reason of its hospitalities, was enriched in later years, by the accumulated acquisitions of its owner, with choice works of art andvirtu, and especially with a valuable collection of bronzes and antique ceramic ware, not displayed for purposes of show, but scattered over the mantel-shelves and cabinets, or disposed about in every available nook and corner of the old house, as natural and fitting adjuncts of the tasteful owner’s home.
But the unique charm of Salisbury Green as a city dwelling lies in its natural surroundings. The terraced lawn slopes to the east, and commands a historic landscapeof rare beauty. The couchant lion of Arthur Seat, a mountain in miniature, rises on the left in a succession of bold cliffs and grassy slopes to a height of eight hundred feet. The basaltic columns of Samson’s Ribs form a singularly bold feature at its base. On the right, the rich undulating landscape terminates in an insulated rock crowned with the picturesque ruin of Craigmillar Castle, famous in Scottish history in the days of the Jameses and Mary Stuart. Right below, Duddingston Loch forms the central feature, with the old village churchyard beyond. Under its mouldering heaps the rude forefathers of many a generation lie around the venerable parish church. Though defaced by tasteless modern additions, the church still retains the richly-moulded Norman chancel arch and south doorway, the work of the same builders who reared the Abbey of Holyrood in the time of David I.; while away in the distant landscape are North Berwick Law, Aberlady Bay, the Bass Rock, and beyond the Firth of Forth the Fifeshire hills. The sudden transition from the dust and bustle of the Dalkeith Road to the garden terrace and the unique landscape beyond, never failed to excite admiring wonder in the visitor who saw it for the first time. It includes such a variety of attractive features, and differs so greatly from anything usually visible from the windows or garden-terrace of a city dwelling, that even the most unimpressible yielded tosome sense of surprise. Many a hearty tribute has accordingly been paid to its beauty. The French artist, Gustave Doré, was charmed with the magnificent panorama; J. J. Hayes, the Arctic explorer, and Bayard Taylor, familiar as a traveller with the beauties of many lands, owned its attractions as exceptionally rare; and the expression of quiet delight with which Augustus Hare—fortunate in an unusually warm, bright day of early summer—lingered over every detail of the historic landscape, has left a vivid impression on the minds of those who recall the incidents of his visit. It was no show-place for strangers, for few men shrank with more instinctive reserve than William Nelson from anything savouring of display; but to friends and friends’ friends it was ever accessible. An American visitor, who, like so many others from beyond the Atlantic, received a hospitable welcome at Salisbury Green, thus recalls the place and its owner:—“I shall never forget the greeting that made us all so much at home, the gentle humour of our host at table, and then the quiet saunter in the summer evening in the garden; Samson’s Ribs, a most curious geological formation, and the hill beyond reflecting the setting sun, on one of those long summer evenings we know nothing of in America. Mr. Nelson pointed out a ruined castle where Queen Mary resided, and a rock out in the sea that had been a prison of the Covenanters. Altogetherthe scene and its pleasant associations are unforgetable.”
Here, in this bright home, William Nelson dwelt, surrounded by wife and children, with an ever-welcome circle of friends; and also with other objects of his kindly consideration—his pet cockatoo, his peacocks, his children’s rabbits, etc., for his sympathetic nature displayed itself strongly in his love for the lower animals. His favourite dogs made him subservient to their caprices, for he could not bear to see an animal neglected. The birds that frequented Salisbury Green were a source of constant delight, and any injury done to them excited his pity. He mourned over the disappearance of the larks, after a succession of wet seasons, as a personal loss; and an ill-timed jest about larkpies seemed to give him acute pain. The reappearance of the birds in the spring, and their pairing and building, were a source of ever-renewed pleasure. But no one entered more heartily into the humorous aspect of things, even when the laugh was at his own expense; and an occasion of this kind transpired during one of my later visits to Salisbury Green. He had been greatly charmed by the appearance of a pair of herons that remained day after day stalking about the lawn, wading in the pond, and seemingly well contented to make themselves at home in the grounds. The household was warned not to disturb the gracefulstrangers; but after a time they disappeared, and then some stray fish-bones on the margin of the pond revealed the secret of their visit. They had only left when the last of its gold-fish had been disposed of!
The tenderness of William Nelson for the lower animals was shown in many ways. A companion of his boyhood recalls an incident of those early years. A party of boys at Kinghorn were off in a boat. They had obtained the prized loan of a gun, and each in his turn was to have a shot at the sea-gulls. William eagerly waited his chance; loaded and pointed his gun at a gull within shot; then, after a pause, he quietly laid it down, with the remark, “No, no! let the poor thing live!” One of the foremen at Hope Park furnishes an incident of later years. Walking down Preston Street, on his way to the office, Mr. Nelson saw a poor little sparrow, just fledged; and having with some difficulty caught it, he gave a boy sixpence to take it to Salisbury Green, and set it free among the trees. Another incident I glean from one of Mrs. Nelson’s letters. “One day, when we were walking together in the grounds, he stooped down and lifted up so tenderly a worm which was on the gravel walk, and laying it on the lawn, he said, ‘I cannot bear to see worms trampled upon; but this one will be safe here.’ ” This is a specific instance of what was a characteristic trait. In some manuscript “Recollections of the late WilliamNelson,” noted down by Mr. Dalgleish, the superintendent of the literary department of the publishing work for many years, the same familiar trait is thus referred to:—“The birds were his constant and most familiar friends. In the veranda of his beautiful house at Salisbury Green he had quaintly-fashioned rustic boxes hung up for the birds to build their nests in. It is a simple matter of fact that, not once or twice, but many times, when walking round his garden after a shower, he lifted a worm from the path, and laid it daintily on the grass.” The tenderness that spared the gull, and cared for the worm on his garden path, went even beyond this. He could not bear to see a mousetrap set, and nothing pleased him more than when his children gave evidence of a like sympathy. “None of us,” writes Mrs. Nelson, “will ever forget the delight he was in one morning when he learned from Alice that she, unknown to any one, had been cutting the string with which the spring of a trap set in the nursery was held, so that no mice might be caught. The servant, on her morning visits to the room, was mortified at the failure of her plans to entrap the intruders, and only after a good deal of questioning found out the delinquent.” Yet such are the curious inconsistencies of human nature, no such thoughts seem to have intruded to mar the enjoyment of his favourite pastime of fishing.
He wasen rapportwith living nature in that peculiar way that seems to distinguish an exceptional class of men. Dogs manifested for him an instinctive sympathy, and he was perfectly fearless with regard to them. When travelling with me in the Muskoka Lake district in Canada, a backwood farmer shouted a warning as he approached the kennel of a half-breed wolf-dog, such as are common with the Indians. But the animal, though ordinarily fierce, responded to his caresses. His own favourite dog, Leo, a fine Italian greyhound, watched for him, and contended with the children for a share of his attention. He would coax and whimper to be allowed to accompany him to the counting-room, where his favourite corner was behind his master in his chair at the writing table, to the manifest inconvenience and satisfaction of both. In a retired nook in the grounds the visitor would come unexpectedly upon the mound, with its little marble pillar, that marked the grave of canine favourites of earlier years, and especially of poor Bronté, whose memory was a source of bitter self-reproach to his master. William Nelson was in the habit for many years of going down to the neighbouring sea-coast before breakfast to bathe. This he did summer and winter, leaving early in the cold dark mornings, accompanied by his faithful companion, Bronté, a large Newfoundland dog. They travelled together in the train to the Chain Pier. But when Mr.Nelson was absent from home, Bronté missed his master, and setting off at the usual early hour, took the train and went off to the beach in search of him. The fact only became known when an account was presented from the railway company for Bronté’s travelling expenses. He and his master were well known to the railway officials, and so Master Bronté, as it proved, had regularly journeyed for his morning bath in a first-class carriage! But the span of life runs within straitened limits for our canine favourites, and ere the close it had become a burden to poor Bronté. The feeling associated with his death, which had long secretly preyed on his master’s mind, found utterance when, in subsequent years, old age once more rendered life a burden to another household pet. A fine large tom cat had passed from kittenhood to extreme old age, and was nursed till its condition of helplessness became so pitiable that some one suggested the administration of poison as an act of mercy. “No, no! don’t give it poison!” exclaimed Mr. Nelson; “you would never forget it. I have never forgiven myself for allowing poor Bronté to be poisoned. It haunts me still. I shall never forget it as long as I live.” So poor Tom was left to die a natural death two days later.
Brighter associations connect themselves with a scene in the drawing-room of Salisbury Green which transpiredin recent years. On a lovely Sabbath morning, when the windows were open on to the lawn, and all were assembled for family worship, as William Nelson was reading a chapter from the Bible, a starling flew into the room. It alighted and kept hopping about his chair, till all knelt down; when, instead of being startled, it perched on his shoulder, remaining quietly there all the time of prayer. When the family rose from their knees, it was thought that the bird would fly away; but it refused to quit its novel perch. He walked with it on his shoulder up to the nursery, where a large bowl of water was placed upon the table, when “Charlie,” as their pet starling was subsequently named, hopped down to enjoy the luxury of a bath. A cage was procured; but Mr. Nelson would not hear of its being shut in. Ultimately, Charlie was housed in a large open cage in the laundry, with free access to the garden. There he made himself entirely at home, and became a great favourite; but after some time he flew off into the garden and did not return. One evening, at a later date, when the family were seated on the lawn, a starling—possibly Charlie—perched on one of the children’s shoulders; and that was the last they ever saw of their little visitor.
There was a rare naturalness and simplicity in William Nelson. He was at ease in any company, and equally accessible to poor as to rich. Yet, with all this,he was singularly undemonstrative. As one of his old friends writes, “he was no hand-shaker;” so that a stranger could never have guessed the deep sympathies that lay concealed under his quiet manner. Yet when his pity was excited his emotion was extreme, and he betrayed the tender sensitiveness of a woman, his tears flowing unrestrained. When his mother, to whom he was passionately attached, lay dying, he shrank from entering the room, where the sight of her suffering overpowered him. But he lingered about the door of the apartment, and could not stay away. When moved with apprehension of the safety of those most dear to him—as on one occasion which I recall, when in deep anxiety about the safety of his son—his emotion was even painful to witness. But his capacity for enjoyment was equally great, and retained in it to the last much of the freshness of childhood. A “Punch and Judy,” especially with a group of children enjoying the show, never lost its charm for him. Another kindly trait of unsophisticated naturalness was the pleasure he derived from street music. He would wait to listen to a ballad-singer, and after a liberal gift, ask to have the song over again. A blind bagpiper was irresistible, though more, I suspect, as an object of charity than for the charm of his music. A cornopean player and sundry German bands came regularly to his office window, and “the Rhine Watch” was sure to callforth half-a-crown. After his death, the comment of an old Parkside workman on the changes that his absence had created was summed up with the remark, “The beggars on the Dalkeith Road and the bands of music have ceased to come now.”
The pleasure which he derived from music was intense. It was, indeed, no uncommon thing to see him moved to tears under its influence. But much of this, doubtless, was the pleasure of association: as in the plaintive national airs of Scotland, the songs and ballads familiar to him from childhood, and the sacred music linked to hymns, many of which have become part of the national psalmody, and entered into the religious life of the whole English-speaking race.
In art his taste was pure. He delighted to have artists about him, criticised their works with frank sincerity, and at times with an unconventional bluntness that was a little startling. Sir George Harvey, James Drummond, Sir Noel Paton and his brother Waller, Sir Daniel Macnee, Keeley Halswell, Alfred H. Forrester (Alfred Crowquill), with Doré, Giacomelli, and other foreigners, were all among his artist-friends; and to those must be added Mrs. D. O. Hill, William Brodie, Stevenson, and other sculptors, to whom the charms of his tasteful home and its beautiful surroundings were familiar. His remarkably fine and expressive head was a model they prized to work from. Hisfeelings in regard to artists and their works find expression in his letters from time to time, as he notes his sense of the loss created by their death.
William Brodie, a self-taught artist of great simplicity and true genius, whose fine statue of Lord Cockburn holds its place in the old Parliament Hall of Edinburgh alongside of Roubiliac’s Forbes of Culloden, Chantrey’s Lord Melville, and Steel’s Lord Jeffrey, was engaged in 1881 on a marble bust of William Nelson. He had been commissioned to execute for Toronto a bronze statue of Mr. Nelson’s brother-in-law, the Hon. George Brown, leader of the Liberal party in Upper Canada in its protracted struggle for constitutional government. His death, after long suffering, by the pistol-shot of an assassin, created a wide-spread sympathy in Canada, and awakened in the mind of William Nelson the keenest sympathy on behalf of his widowed sister. This, accordingly, gave an exceptional interest to the proposed statue. He discussed the plans with the sculptor, and eagerly anticipated its execution. But the commission had not been long intrusted to him, and the plans for its realization settled, when death arrested the gifted sculptor in the midst of his work. More than one day had been spent in the studio, examining some of his latest productions, including the unfinished bust, and discussing the treatment of the proposed statue. In the following November, WilliamNelson thus writes:—“You will have heard, ere this reaches you, intelligence of the death of poor William Brodie, the sculptor. He had been suffering for several months past from fatty degeneration of the heart, and on Sunday morning last he was released from earthly care and trouble. I had a note from his wife about a week before his death, in which she stated that he was a little better, and that he had been able to make some drawings for the statue of George Brown, but that no further progress had been made in the matter. The loss is great to art, for he was at his very best, and improving as he progressed. His Sir James Simpson I do not like; but he blamed its low site, buried among the trees, and wanted it removed to the open area of Nicolson Square, where, I daresay, it would show much better. As for his Lord Cockburn, it is the finest thing in the Parliament House. It is not for me to suggest who should now be intrusted with the work; but there can be no doubt that Mrs. D. O. Hill will be looking out for the commission; and if it should come her way, and she were to produce a work equal to her statue of Livingstone, the committee would not have occasion to regret having intrusted her with it.”
Art had ever a charm for William Nelson, and he watched with jealous sensitiveness the memorial statues which adorn the streets and squares of his native city. But a keen personal sympathy gave intensity to hisinterest in the one to be erected in honour of his own brother-in-law. The execution of it was ultimately intrusted to Mr. C. Bell Birch, A.R.A.; and in February 1884 Mr. Nelson thus writes from London to Mr. James Campbell:—“I am here for a short time, with Mrs. Nelson and my daughter Florence. We have all been out this afternoon at the studio of Mr. Birch, the sculptor, seeing the model of the statue that is to be erected to the memory of poor George Brown. I am glad to say that we are all of opinion that the statue will be a noble one, though we are not quite sure if the likeness will be what can be called a speaking likeness.” The statue did ultimately satisfy in this respect, and now forms an attractive feature in the Queen’s Park at Toronto. As to the love of art here referred to, it is perpetuated by the younger generation. Salisbury Green has its own studio, where both modelling and painting were pursued by a group of young artists with more than ordinary amateur skill. But art has found other rivals in the new home to which the fair critic of Mr. Birch’s model has transferred herpenates.
As time wore on, and the thick clustering black locks of early years whitened with the frosts of time, William Nelson courted more than ever his own family reunions, delighted to gather his friends about him, and noted with tender regrets the blanks that death made in the old circle. Thus he writes to me in January1882: “Several weel kent faces have fled wi’ the year that’s awa’, including old artist-friends who have recently disappeared from our midst that you will mourn.” After referring to William Brodie and Sir Daniel Macnee, he proceeds: “And now I have to inform you that your old friend William Miller [the eminent engraver] has been called away, he having died at Sheffield yesterday. I met him not long ago in the Meadows, as he was going in the direction of Millerfield; and he walked as erect as he ever did, which was a most remarkable thing for a man only four years short of being a nonagenarian. In addition to those I have mentioned as having joined the majority, the name of Sheriff Hallard has to be added; and Edinburgh has lost in him a great deal of happy sunshine.”
REFERENCE has already been made to William Nelson’s love of travel. It was indeed a passion with him, which, with his persistent eagerness for the minutest information on all points brought under his notice, might under other circumstances have won a place for him among distinguished travellers.
During a delightful sojourn which I shared with him in the Vale of Yarrow in 1880, a special object of pilgrimage was the ruined cottage in which the African traveller, Mungo Park, was born; and as he looked on it he recalled the picture, by Sir George Harvey, representing the fainting traveller in the African desert revived by the sight of a little flower that seemed to tell of the divine hand, and renewed his faith in the fatherhood of God. He followed up the subject, recovered an original sketch map executed by the traveller of his intended second route, of which he had a copy made; and among the letters preserved by him is one from Dr. Anderson of Selkirk, in which it is stated:—“Park served his apprenticeship for a surgeon with my grandfather in this house (Dove Cot) where I now live, and where my grandfather, my father, and myself have practised for more than a hundred years. My father served his apprenticeship with Park in Peebles, when he practised there before going off on his second journey. There stands a very handsome tree in front of my house, a horse-chestnut, which was planted by the traveller while courting his intended wife.”
African travel had a peculiar fascination for William Nelson. The return of the venerable missionary, Dr. Robert Moffat, from his life-long labours among the Hottentots and Bechuanas, awakened in him the liveliest interest; and his son-in-law, Livingstone, was an object of special veneration. When the startling news of Stanley’s meeting with him at Ujiji was reported, it greatly excited and gratified him. And when Mr. Henry M. Stanley visited Edinburgh on his return from Africa, he received a hearty welcome at Salisbury Green. Keith Johnston, another of the explorers of the Dark Continent, who fell a victim to the deadly climate, was the son of an old friend. He watched with interest the news of his early efforts, and tenderly mourned his fate. The same summer in which the ruined cottage in the Vale of Yarrow was the object of William Nelson’s curious interest, he had as his guest at Salisbury Green Mr. Joseph Thomson, then recentlyreturned from his exploratory wanderings in previously unvisited regions to the south of the Victoria Nyanza, and gratified his intelligent curiosity, plying him with questions about the strange land and its people.
His own wanderings extended beyond the ordinary routes of the tourist. He visited Norway and Sweden on more than one occasion; travelled in Denmark and Russia, through Spain, Morocco, and Algiers; journeyed, as we have seen, in Palestine; explored Egypt and the Nile; crossed the American continent to the Pacific; and was on the eve of an extended visit to Greece and Asia Minor when his active life came to a close. His correspondence is voluminous, and supplies ample details of his experience on successive journeys; but a few illustrations will suffice for needful glimpses of personal characteristics. His journey across the American continent in 1870 has already been referred to. The Yosemite Valley, and the wonders of the Yellowstone Region, are now familiar to tourists; but at that date they were recently discovered and little known. He landed at New York on the 18th of May, had the excitement of a threatened Indian raid as they traversed the territory of the Sioux, but reached the Rocky Mountains in safety. He passed through the defiles of the mountains with unexpected ease; and then he notes: “If the passage of the Rocky Mountains has been easy, this has been made up by the crossingof the Sierra Nevada in California, which is the most difficult task in railway engineering that has yet been undertaken. These mountains are between eight and nine thousand feet high, and over these the railway passes, the roadway being in many places cut out of solid rock, with perpendicular walls of many hundred feet deep, falling straight down from the very edge of the railway.” The famous Yosemite Valley he describes as “a valley of about twelve miles in length by two in breadth, that has apparently been formed by the ground sinking down to a depth of some three or four thousand feet, and leaving perpendicular cliffs all round. In these are many fine waterfalls, the largest being no less than two thousand six hundred feet high;” and after a minute description of its features, he pronounces the valley to be “one of the greatest wonders of the world.” The Indians were a subject of unfailing interest. He longed to see the aborigines in their genuine condition of savage simplicity; and at a later date, when referring to this subject in a letter to Captain James Chester of the 3rd U.S. Artillery, he says:—“I send you a cutting from theTimes. We all know that the Scotch are a practical people; but I never before, in all my reading, met with an instance of their getting the credit for goaheadness in the way referred to. The Marquis of Lorne, while Governor-General of Canada, was on the look-out for the genuine native;and some of his first experiences, as he travelled beyond the frontiers of civilization, are thus described by a correspondent who accompanied him:—‘We begin to-morrow with an address from some Indians at Little Current, on Manitoulin Island, who ought to be real, full-blooded Indians, if any faith can be put in Indian names. But probably little faith can be put in them. The mixture of races has been carried on,—more especially by the Scotch, always foremost in everything,—with so much energy that it is never easy to know whether an Indian is full-blooded, or, as some stranger to the laws of orthography and pronunciation tersely phrased it, “half Ingin, half Ingineer.” In one of his speeches Lord Lorne told us of his once expressing a wish to see a real, full-blooded Indian, his first; and being rather astonished when the Canadian who undertook to gratify his wish summoned the required real specimen of the aboriginal race by shouting, “Come here, MacDonald.” ’ ”
The Falls of Niagara had no such fresh wonder as belonged to the newly-discovered marvels of California; but familiarity does not lessen their effect, and the impression produced on Mr. Nelson’s mind is worth reproducing in his own words. He travelled in company with Mrs. Nelson, and he thus writes:—“One misses the true height of the falls at first—one hundred and sixty-three feet—owing to looking down upon them as theyplunge into a deep gorge, in addition to their great extent in breadth. But still the impression is overpowering. Before dinner we went on to Goat Island, which divides the Horse Shoe, or Canadian Fall, from the American Fall; got over to the Three Sisters—three lovely wooded islands anchored amid the roar of waters—and then looked up the great rapids from the head of Goat Island. This I really think almost finer than the actual falls. There is no hill or rising ground visible. The flat shore scarcely seems to reach above the water’s brink; and here is a great tumbling flood that looks as if it came right out of the sky, and was going to sweep everything before it. After dinner we crossed the ferry, right under the falls, and formed a more definite idea of their height. We then found our way to a spot on the Canadian side above the falls, where we looked down on the Horse Shoe Fall. It has eaten its way back into the rock; and an old residenter on the spot told us it has greatly changed since he remembered it. It now looks as though the whole mighty flood were poured into a narrow cleft, and disappears in a rising cloud of vapour, in which, when the sun is shining, there is a constant rainbow.”
At Toronto attractions of a different, but not less acceptable, kind awaited him. He started for the backwoods, and fished in Lake Muskoka with his old school-mate for his guide. And on his return toToronto, a party of the fellow-students of early years met at dinner under his present biographer’s roof. Sir Andrew Ramsay, the head of the Geographical Survey of Great Britain, chanced to be on a visit to Canada; Alexander Sprunt had come on from North Carolina to place his son at the University of Toronto; the Hon. George Brown, his own brother-in-law, was now a Senator of the Dominion; the Hon. David Christie was Speaker of the Senate; Professor George Paxton Young, and their host, were both members of the Faculty of the Provincial University; and thus, after an interval of more than forty years, the memories of school and college life were recalled, and old times lived over again, with many a humorous reminiscence, and some amusing gleanings from the record of school-mates. In a letter to his sister he says: “You may imagine with what delight I met so many of my old school-fellows, and how we did talk over the days of auld lang syne!”
The Parisian capital is a place of too easy and frequent resort to admit of its being embraced within the range of notable explorations; but two of his visits to Paris were made under such exceptional circumstances as to claim special notice here. The first of those was his characteristic visit at the period of Prince Louis Napoleon’s famouscoup d’état. An old friend, Mr. Matthew Tait, thus briefly narrates the event:—“Weall know how fond he was of foreign travel, and how he liked to watch the movements of crowds and to witness any public display. My brother accompanied him to Paris in 1851. It was at the time of thecoup d’état. Mingling one day with the crowds that filled the Place de la Concorde, they suddenly found themselves exposed to a charge of cavalry. The crowd instantly gave way amid shrieks and yells; some of them were mortally wounded. My brother remarked to me afterwards on the coolness and self-possession of William Nelson, who seemed to have far more sympathy with the unfortunate victims than concern for his own safety.”
In William Nelson’s boyhood the journey to London was a formidable adventure. A youth who had achieved that feat won the respect of his companions as one who had seen the world. To have actually crossed the Channel was to be a great traveller. Rotterdam and the Hague, or Christiania and Copenhagen, by reason of the trade of the neighbouring sea-port, lay within easier reach than Paris. But steam-boats and railways have wrought as great a revolution in ideas as in experience; and in his later years a visit to Paris was no uncommon occurrence. But the circumstances were altogether exceptional when in March 1871,—the year succeeding that of his journey across the American continent,—he proceeded thither, accompanied by Mrs.Nelson and an American friend, Mr. George Buckham of New York. The Franco-German War was over; Paris had capitulated; and this unwonted condition of things presented attractions peculiarly calculated to tempt William Nelson to witness for himself the novel scene. Happily some interesting reminiscences of the adventure are recoverable from notes furnished by both of his fellow-travellers.
They met in London on the 16th of March, and on learning that the German army had evacuated Paris, they resolved to avail themselves of the opportunity of witnessing the devastations of war, while the city still wore the aspect due to its prolonged siege. They started accordingly the following day. On reaching the suburbs of Paris they were struck with the wretched condition of the numerous soldiers of the besieging army, still bivouacked there in dirty, tattered uniforms, little calculated to suggest the idea of proud conquerors. They put up at the Hôtel Chatham; and on their way from the railway station their attention was drawn to the excited crowds in the streets and boulevards. It was soon apparent that the terrors of the siege had been succeeded by revolutionary revolt. Many wounded and dying were being carried past on stretchers. The streets were filled with citizens and soldiers gesticulating in an angry manner, and evidently ripe for violence. The very few shops thatwere open looked dreary and deserted; and the inhabitants had a careworn, anxious look, as though they dreaded a renewal of the terrible experiences of the siege.
About noon the travellers set out to explore the scenes still bearing evidence of the conflict so recently ended. They reached the Champ de Mars in time to see several regiments of the National Guard arrive and pitch their tents. They were survivors of the army of General Chanzy, which had suffered so terribly; and Mr. Buckham notes of them: “All were scarcely older than mere boys. They were in a dreadfully ragged and distressed condition.” Everywhere, indeed, the pride and glory of war had given place to its most forbidding aspects. At Pont de Jour the shells had made terrible havoc, almost totally destroying every house in the place. At St. Cloud it was the same. The palace which the Emperor left on the 18th of July 1870, at the head of the Grande Armée, to march to Berlin, was almost completely demolished; and a street of once beautiful mansions near it was a mere pile of ruins. This was the work of the besieged, in their efforts to dislodge the Germans, who were carousing in the magnificent halls of the imperial palace. Everywhere the travellers were struck with the evidences of the blind fury of the populace. The “N,” the “E,” and every symbol of the emperor, had been effaced orbroken. Statues of the First Napoleon, and a beautiful statue of the Empress Josephine that adorned the avenue which bore her name, had been thrown down and flung into the river. Even the heads of the bronze eagles on the Grand Opera House had been broken off.
They sought in vain for a conveyance to hire. At every livery stable they were told that the horses had all been killed and eaten. Towards evening the excitement became intense, under the apprehension that the Red Republicans, who were evidently gaining ground, would take complete possession of Paris. The landlord of the Hôtel Chatham was greatly excited, and cautioned his guests against venturing out of doors. But an old citizen of Edinburgh, Mr. Nimmo, who was well known to Mr. Nelson, undertook to be their guide. He had himself been a leader in the political movements of the old Scottish reformers at a time when such proceedings imperilled his safety; and so, taking refuge in Paris, he had resided there for forty-nine years, and now found himself at home in thefurorof a fresh revolution. Under his escort they traversed the deserted and gloomy thoroughfares, till they reached the Place Vendôme, where a military guard arrested their progress, and compelled them to pursue a different route. When they passed the end of the Louvre, and turned in the direction of the boulevard leading towards the Place Vendôme, they suddenly became involvedin a disorderly mass of soldiers; and within half an hour after they reached their hotel, the Place Vendôme was captured by the mob. A little later the Hôtel de Ville was in the hands of the Communists, the government fled from Paris, and the revolution was an accomplished fact. The Grande Armée disappeared. On the Saturday night, March 18th, there was fighting going on in several parts of the city; and when, on the following day, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson and their friend visited two Protestant churches, they found them closed, and all attempt at public worship abandoned. They were successful at length in securing a hired vehicle, and making their way to the Jardin des Plantes, where they found, to their surprise, that nearly all the animals had survived the siege. There had been sensational newspaper paragraphs concerning the novel dishes which the national menagerie supplied; and William Nelson’s fancy was greatly taken with the idea of a hippopotamus steak, a giraffe ragout, a dish of devilled tiger, or some other equallyrecherchéentertainment; but instead of the beasts being devoured, it had been found possible to provide them with something to eat. Eighty-four shells had fallen within the garden enclosures, but the damage was slight; while seven of the poor invalids in a large hospital adjoining had been killed in their beds. While walking through the Jardin des Plantes, a stranger approached Mr. Nelson, andaddressing him, told him he was a professor in the University of Dublin, had been shut up in Paris during the siege, and reduced to the direst straits. He was anxious to get away, but he had no money. Mr. Buckham, who witnessed the interview, adds: “In such cases Mr. Nelson never hesitated. I have seen many other instances of his benevolence. He relieved this gentleman at once.” Mr. Buckham adds that he learned from Mr. Nimmo of many instances of suffering and distress, as the results of the siege, which had been reported by him to Mr. Nelson. He did not stop to inquire more, but helped the needy, and relieved the distressed and suffering, without any idea that his good deeds were ever known to any one but Mr. Nimmo, who had the pleasant duty of acting as his almoner.
The entire scene abounded in strange and exciting novelty. They drove to the Hôtel de Ville, and there had to abandon their conveyance. The grand square was filled with soldiers. Men and boys were tearing up the paving-stones and constructing barricades. The flag of the Red Republicans was flying on the hotel, and the soldiers were shouting, “Vive la République!” and fraternizing with the mob. So alarming grew the situation that the idea gained favour with many of the citizens to invite the return of the Prussians to Paris as the only escape from a reign of terror. Proclamations were issued by the Government, and counter proclamationsby the Red Republicans. The travellers were warned by their landlord not to venture out; but it was useless to visit Paris at such a time merely to be immured in their hotel. So at noon they started for Versailles, under the guidance of Mr. Nimmo, and paid a visit there to M. Giacomelli, Mr. Nelson’s artist friend. He had had several Prussian officers quartered on him, and the account he gave of the insolent brutality of those representatives of the victorious army seems to have been abundantly confirmed by the condition in which they left the artist’s beautiful château. Mr. Buckham thus writes:—
“Monsieur and Madame Giacomelli are people of the highest refinement and culture, and it was impossible to listen to a recital of their wrongs unmoved. The walls of theirsalonswere hung with most beautiful paintings, many of which had been cut from their frames. The beautiful draperies of the windows were stained with tobacco juice; and the rich satin coverings of their furniture, which the officers had lounged on with spurs, were hanging in ribbons.”
The calm self-control and fearlessness in danger which have already been noted among the characteristics of William Nelson, were repeatedly noted by his travelling companion under the most trying circumstances during this sojourn in Paris. Mr. Buckham thus writes:—“In the exciting scenes of these few days, in whichMr. Nelson mingled freely and fearlessly, no one was so calm as he. The writer accompanied him through scenes in which we were often menaced with the insane violence of armed men, so that it was deemed the height of madness to expose ourselves to it. On one occasion, in the Marché St. Honoré, which we entered suddenly, not knowing what was going on, we found it crowded with armed men and women almost foaming with rage at our intrusion. Three words uttered by Mr. Nelson in a low tone restored me to self-control. ‘Take my arm,’ he said quietly, and we passed unharmed, with muskets and bayonets pointed at us. While traversing the Rue de Rivoli, for a long distance we did not see a human being, until we were suddenly confronted by a Communist doing sentinel duty. Mr. Nelson said to me in his calm tone of voice, ‘Say nothing; I’ll manage this fellow.’ So on we went, and the sentinel brought down his musket from his shoulder. Our pace was not changed. Mr. Nelson gave the military salute; he again shouldered his musket, and we passed on.”
The season was early, but a succession of days of brilliant sunshine, with the trees putting forth their fresh spring leaves and early blossoms, and the songs of the birds already building their nests, all tended to intensify the desolation of the scene and the misery of the populace. In the ruined villages around Paris theysaw men, women, and children who gazed as if stupified at the wreck of their humble dwellings, while they seemed only involved in worse dangers by the withdrawal of the invaders. A revolution was at its height. The National Assembly was sitting at Versailles, while the Red Republicans held Paris; and the army was taking sides, and divided between the rival governments. On the 21st of March, Mr. Buckham notes:—“Another splendid day, but as no cabs could be found, we trudged about on foot. The streets are filled with crowds of excited people; some are armed, and bent on mischief. Not a vehicle is to be seen; the whole roadway is filled with people. Orators are declaiming, and the newswomen are screaming out the last ‘special,’ which is eagerly seized until the stock of newspapers is exhausted. The landlords of the hotels have forbidden the departure of their guests in obedience to an order issued by the Government. The English agent of the Rothschilds called and informed us that a conflict was inevitable. The people of wealth were ordered to furnish money to the insurgents, and if they refused they were marched off to the Conciergerie between two files of soldiers. Suddenly about noon the Boulevards were filled with immense crowds of citizens shouting for peace. A great procession was formed and marched to the Hôtel de Ville and Place Vendôme to remonstrate with the Communists. Thismovement, proving the unpopularity of the insurrection, was visible at once on the Bourse by the rise of stocks! The order forbidding strangers to depart was revoked, the shops were reopened, and there was a reasonable prospect of an immediate suppression of the revolution.”