Works of grant allen, p.1047
Works of Grant Allen, page 1047
Life had been smooth sailing for Allen up to the time of his settlement at Oxford. Soon after this, changes in family circumstances threw him on his own efforts, since resources, outside the Postmastership, he had none. So he earned a little money, in the usual fashion, by coaching. With more chivalry than prudence, he had given hostages to fortune by an early marriage, which, if it called forth his devotion, and brought out his noblest qualities, crippled his energies, and made life a terrible struggle. For, very soon after the marriage, his wife was stricken with paralysis, rendering her totally helpless for two years, when the end came. Whether from the standpoint of health or economy, Oxford was no place for a poor man with an invalid companion, and hence Allen flitted, as circumstances demanded or allowed, from place to place, now living in London, now at the seaside, going up to Oxford only within the limits of residence necessary for securing his degree. In a letter written on New Year’s Day 1870 to Mr. E. B. W. Nicholson, now Bodley’s Librarian, he says: —
Waterloo House, Victoria Street, Ventnor.
.. My coming up to Oxford next term is not more doubtful than usual; that is to say, the betting is not more than 10 to 1 against it. When a man has no money, and can’t make any anyhow, he finds it difficult to make up any very definite plan for the future. If I can find money to pay my railway fare, I always go up; if not, I borrow a penny stamp and write for a grace-term. I am reading for next May. I shall not put off one day beyond my first chance. So that I have only five months to read for Greats. But I will have my shot then or never. I am much too poor a man to waste any more time on an unproductive place like Oxford. If you are resolved, I am ten times more so. All I want is a degree. I go in for no fellowship. As soon as I get the two letters, and as good a class as I can manage, I shall get an easy mastership, where there is lots of work and very poor pay, and subside into obscurity.... You will doubtless by this time have discovered that I am in a bad humour this evening. I have been reading Livy all evening; and as I have only the Oxford text and no dictionary, I have scarcely done anything. I have to get through five books in a fortnight, so I am rather riled. — Yours Davidically, Jonathanically, and Pythiadamonically,
GRANT ALLEN.
(Note. — Mr. Franklin Richards tells me that Allen did try for a fellowship in 1872.)
Allen’s first known appearance in print was in the pages of the ‘Oxford University Magazine and Review,’ of which only two numbers, December 1869 and January 1870, were published. Mr. Franklin Richards and Mr. Nicholson were joint editors of the first number, to which Allen contributed a dainty little poem entitled ‘Two Portraits,’ reprinted in ‘The Lower Slopes’ under the title ‘Forecast and Fulfilment.’ For the second number he and Mr. Nicholson were responsible, and additional interest attaches itself to the contents, as evidencing Allen’s bent and versatility. He contributed an article on ‘The Positive Aspect of Communism’; a poem entitled ‘In Bushy Park’ (reprinted in ‘The Lower Slopes’); and a short story, ‘ Mr. Josiah P. Doolittle’s Electioneering Experiences,’ which, in sprightly style, tells how Josiah P. Doolittle, of Hitchcocksbury University, U.S.A., outwitted a corrupt election committee. The ‘Radical of the Period,’ as Allen styles himself in a letter to Mr. Nicholson, wherein he regrets that he can spare no more time for the magazine, justifies his title in the article on Communism. But it has touches of the ‘Philosophical Radical’ in the better sense of the recognition of evolution in politics. A sentence or two bearing on this may be quoted
‘Communism does not imply the cessation of progress, just as it does not either imply the absolute perfection of government. It might be so if any purely theoretical scheme of politics could be successfully carried out into practice; but, as in real life we have to deal with constantly varying physical and moral conditions, it is absurd to suppose we shall ever reach a state of perfection beyond which it will be impossible to devise any improvement. Communism will have its defects and its checks; it will find its reformers and its conservatives; it will never seem to have been fully realised till after it has been replaced by some still more perfect system, invented to remedy evils of which we can now have no conception. It will be complete only when it has ceased to exist.’
Passing by the poem — one of many written at this time, and confided to the care of Mr. Franklin Richards, or circulated in manuscript — interest centres in the story, as showing Allen’s early predilection for narrative as vehicle for his views. In many of his scientific papers he slides into the familiar and the personal; trembling, as it were, on the edge of the dramatic presentment of things, as in Hood’s most serious verse we hear the jingle which, unchecked by the’ theme, would rattle with a pun. Hence it would seem that Allen was driven into fiction much as a duck is driven into water.
He was never a member of the Union, which involved a certain detachment from some men of his years; but there was no lack of arenas of talks and debates ‘de omnibus rebus’ in the rooms of College friends, notably those of Mr. Franklin Richards, where he met Mr. Nicholson, and also of Mr. Bromley, where he met Mr. York Powell, now Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford, who, to the great advantage of this memoir, has been good enough at my request to send the following
‘My dear Clodd, — Here are same scraps that linger in my memory touching G. A. The first time I met him was in Bromley’s rooms in 1869 I believe. He was, of course, wholly unlike the average British undergraduate, and it was his pleasure to accentuate the differences with a kind of defiance, quiet but real, of the conventions that the Philistine worships. He was never afraid of being himself; he was not ashamed to seem grotesque if he chose. This was almost incredible originality in the undergraduate of the seventies and sixties. Of course, he talked openly, but we all did that, and confidently, as most of us did, upon the many questions that interested us — théologie, philosophic, social, political. He was of the most “advanced” type of the sixties, and I think he was that to the end. The bent of his mind was logical, orderly, accepting only the appeal to reason, but at the same time caring (too much, as I thought) for completeness of “system.” At first he struck one a little unpleasantly perhaps, for he would never allow a man to think he agreed with him if he didn’t, and so he used to state his own position very sharply and irrevocably; but one soon got to see through the confident doctrinaire the kindly, gentle, generous, and sympathetic friend and comrade, who could differ without bitterness, and would treat any honest and unselfish belief he did not hold himself as wrong certainly, but never as discreditable to the holder’s heart, though he must often have considered our crude theories as damaging to any trust in the soundness of our heads. I remember he was interested in my raw joy in Büchner, the fashionable, popular materialist of the day, and once or twice we discussed Comte; but we neither of us gave him the position that the preceding generation had allowed him, and when a man could read Darwin and Spencer we both felt there was no further need for such as him. When Allen got hold of Spencer I don’t know exactly, I think as early at least as’69, but he was a whole-souled disciple. He had naturally a bent toward dogmatic, and he welcomed the comprehensive system that at once satisfied his scientific bent, his love of logical order, and his desire for completeness of theory. I remember many arguments over Spencer both in the seventies and later. When Richard Shute, my philosopher friend, got to know Allen, they often argued grandly, Shute taking the extreme sceptical position and attacking wittily and vigorously, and Allen defending the whole Spencerian stronghold with boundless ingenuity and tireless perseverance, the rest of us putting in a query or a word or two of encouragement or deprecation whenever we got a chance. I remember, too, solitary walks and talks with Allen, especially about the river below Oxford, and above it in the fields by Godstow, after he had taken his degree. He was a great lover of the quiet, soft, meadowy landscape of the Thames valley, and he often used to refer to a stray remark of mine, made one superb summer afternoon at Iffley, that I doubted after all “whether the Tropics were more lovely,” and would say that his tropical experiences had decided him that they were not. He had a keen eye for the character and “make” of landscape, but he could never draw a line, and I don’t remember him ever attending to any but “local colour” in the scenery. I think he saw nature as a naturalist rather than as a painter.
‘I remember being presented to his first wife — a gentle, quiet, soft-speaking woman, in poor health even then in the early days of their wedded life — and noticing the tenderness and care with which he anticipated her wishes, and spared her all fatigue or trouble, while it was delightful to see how she appreciated in her silent, grateful way his affectionate attention and guardianship.
‘The last scene of the early pre-Jamaican days of Allen at Oxford was a jolly oyster-lunch that he gave at the Mitre. There were a lot of men there, for he made it a kind of farewell feast to all his Oxford friends. Esme Gordon, the lad he had been “coaching” for a time, was there, and there was a strange mixture of riding, reading, and rowing men, all for the hour united happily in Allen’s glad hospitality. Every one was struck with the originality and success of this innovation of an oyster-lunch at Oxford, but I don’t remember it being imitated. Oxford undergraduate and bachelor life is excessively governed by routine, and shuns even new forms of feasting unless they are regarded as required by fashion.
‘After his second most fortunate marriage and long stay in Jamaica we used often to meet, and I found him a far happier man than I had ever known him before, but as kindly, as keen, as clear-headed, and as enthusiastic and zealous for reforms in ethic and politic as ever. He had learned a lot in the Tropics; he had thought out a valuable thesis on colour-sense; he was on the way to several discoveries in botany; he was full of energetic plans for the future. His conversation was as delightful as ever, more full of instances, widened by experience, but still steadfast to orthodox Spencerism, and definitely radical. In his accent, his attitude, his looks, his judicious parcelling of his time, his wise care for the future, his humane and ceaseless care for others, his pleasure in talking and walking, his love for Swinburne’s “Poems and Ballads,” and his reverence for Spencer and Darwin, he was still essentially the same man I had parted from early in the seventies with so much regret when he left England for Jamaica, and the same he remained in all essentials to the last. I learned a lot from him always. The phlegmatic dulness and self-satisfaction of the “average Englishman,” who hates to think at all save when at business on business matters, and in everything else gives full swing to prejudice and custom, refusing to believe that any “foreigner” can ever (save perhaps in the matter of sauces, or piano-playing, or sculpture) teach him anything — the vulgar dulness of such an one exasperated his clear Gallic mind, and he would gibe and mock at the shams we English profess to believe in and are pleased to occasionally do public homage to (especially in our “cant newspaper phrases”) in a most amusing and effective way of his own. He was determined whenever he had the opportunity to speak out and plainly attack the tyrannous and stupid conventionalities that are allowed to do their worst to choke healthy life in England. And it is a satisfaction to me to know that he had his knife deep into many of them before he died. His kindness was delicate and unfailing, and I and mine have often experienced it; he was really pleased to do a friend a service, and he could spend time and take trouble in such a case ungrudgingly.
‘When Grant Allen died I had known him for thirty years without a shade of difference ever arising between us, and certainly he was one of the best and truest friends a man could have — generous, fair-minded, and unforgetful of the old comradeship; so that though he was always able down to the last to make new friends, I do not think he ever lost one of his old friends, save those whom death too soon removed. I do not see how such a straightforward, sympathetic, enthusiastic nature as Allen’s can have passed through the world without influencing those he came in contact with very definitely for the better. His patience, affection, and practical wisdom in facing the inevitable with a brave politeness, made one ashamed of one’s own lesser troubles, and helped one to meet the difficulties in one’s own path. Few men I have known well have cared more for the essentials than Grant Allen. Truth, Justice, Pity, Love, Gratitude, and Sympathy were to him throughout his life real things to be upheld at all hazards. His Faith was always great; his Hope was continually and wonderfully sustained; his Charity was invincible.
‘I must leave other people to speak about his fiction and his study of the natural sciences. The first I could not, save in the short stories, appreciate; the latter skilled specialists; must finally appraise; but it is impossible to avoid noticing its ingenuity, its basis of research (often long and hard), the clear and pleasing style in which the arguments are given. His folklore studies, though I think he was a little apt to recognise fewer factors than I should have postulated, deserve most careful attention, so suggestive and so ingenious are their hypotheses and conclusions. He had the keen, quick, fearless mental temper and the acute memory so often associated with the power of making scientific discoveries. I consider that he was among the first to really expose the weak points of the Teutonic School of early English history, and to show that pre-Teutonic elements must be fully acknowledged and their forces allowed for by every historian of these islands. His historical writing was distinguished by many of the qualities that mark the best work of J. R. Green. He possessed the historic imagination; he could see what had been impossible in the past and was mere bad guessing on the part of modéras; he could frame reasonable hypotheses, good working theories; he was not easily diverted from his track by arguments based on “authority” or prejudice or rhetoric. He was a born teacher, an excellent and painstaking instructor, never sparing himself, remindful of his own difficulties in learning, and careful to explain things clearly that could be explained clearly, and to acknowledge that there were things that as yet were not capable of satisfactory explanation. His little “Anglo-Saxon Britain” marked a distinct advance when it came out, and connected the bookman again with the spade-man in the task of interpreting the early days of Teutonic colonisation in Britain. Of his verse, I admire the faithful and polished Attys translation above the rest His guidebooks seem to me both fresh and excellent, truly educational and admirably practical.
‘There are certain favourite spots in the Isis meadows and banks, certain oft-trodden walks near Dorking, a hillside in Wales, that will always be associated in my mind with Grant Allen. I used to think he talked best in the open air, and that the fireside was not his real coign of vantage. The walk was the crown and pinnacle of his day, the pleasure to look forward to and to look back on; every copse and hedgerow was a living museum to him, every roadside or field corner a botanical garden. He loved observing far better than reading, and he never shrank from thinking things out as far as he could. Hence there was perpetual interest in his talk and life. But if he had been blind and unlettered I should have loved him and respected him, for he was ever a close follower of Truth, and walked in noble companionship with Pity and Courage. — Yours faithfully,
‘F. YORK POWELL.’
Mr. Andrew Lang, who did not meet him till he had left Oxford, says in the genial and generous tribute paid to the memory of his friend in the ‘Daily News’ three days after his death: ‘Allen told me how he found scratched on an ancient pane of glass in the window of his rooms a rhyming mediaeval Latin verse. The Latin I have forgotten, but the sense was, “Why tarriest thou? what makest thou here, at Oxford?” He caused a wire grating to be placed over the pane, outside, that it might not suffer from the casual pebble of regardless youth. Perhaps not many undergraduates would have taken so much trouble?’ Mr. Bowman, the bursar of Merton, favours me with the following interesting note on this matter: —
