Complete works of hall c.., p.703
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 703
There is a subtle, elusive charm about the Isle of Man which is obvious to the least observant of men, but there are few who are able to define its particular character, or who are able to define from what source it is derived. Once become a lover of that narrow stretch of land, and you are eternally lost; its beauty, its freshness and its fragrance will haunt you for ever, and each year when June comes round you will be impelled, by an irresistible desire, to tread once more the heights of Snaefell and Barrule, and wander again through the glens of Sulby and the Dhoon. It were worse than useless for me to attempt to paint any of the beautiful scenes which Manxland possesses, but the explanation of its distinctive charm lies in this, that it is an island. For not only is it an island, but a nation — a nation with manners and customs peculiar to itself — a nation that is, for the most part, occupied with itself and its own affairs. Its very aloofness attracts. It is in the world, but not of it; it lies apart surrounded by the ever-changing seas, and covered by a firmament which seems to be a part of its very self. The dim outline of the hills of other lands — England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales — only emphasises this sense of remoteness. It is only the vessels out at sea creeping steadily along the horizon, that act as a reminder of the existence of other lands, and not the far-off lands themselves. These vessels are the only disturbing influence of the island’s peace: they breathe forth the breath of the city, and remind one of that which one has been tempted almost to forget — that the world is not all beautiful, and that sooner or later the city will again claim us as its own.
But this island-charm was not the only influence that was at work upon the young child’s imagination. His grandmother, superstitious like all good Manx people, would tell him tales in the dusk of evening, that banished all sleep from his eyes, and set his fancy weaving stories of elves, fairies, gnomes and witches. The old woman had the folk-lore of her native country at her finger-ends, and so attentive a listener curled up at the fire of peat made a good story-teller of her. The first book he remembers reading was a huge volume on the German Reformation, about Luther and Melancthon, and other men who soon became his well-loved heroes. These days Mr Caine remembers well and the memory is sweet and pleasant. But the time came when it was necessary for him to go to school, and he returned to his parents who had settled in Liverpool. At the age of ten he entered as a “new boy” the public school in Hope Street, Liverpool. Among his fellow pupils was a William Pierce who was afterwards to become one of the most prominent figures in the Congregational Ministry. I am indebted to this gentleman for the following schoolboy reminiscences of his companion.
“Many things served to make the entry of Hall Caine among us noteworthy. In the first place, he was easily distinguished among a crowd of schoolboys by his then bright hair — gold, turning to red — his clear, almost girlish complexion, and his large, luminous brown eyes. I think the almost instantaneous conviction in the minds of the rest of the class that morning was that our new friend would be all the better for a little wholesome persecution when their duties were over, if only to take some of the painful freshness out of him and tone him down to our own colour. This feeling on our part was heightened when he was called upon to read a passage aloud, which he did, as I clearly recall, in a very musical voice, and with much greater modulation than we had dared to employ — lest we should be thought to be giving ourselves airs! When our master was injudicious enough to praise Hall Caine warmly at the expense of the rest of us, the duty of taking him in hand became one of high moral obligation.
And though I have no recollection of what happened, I have no doubt that, being so different from other boys in many respects, he did suffer some little persecution, without being, I hope, any the worse for the discipline.
“I think that probably, to the end of his school experience, Caine was somewhat scoffed at by the rougher boys; partly, also, because he was not addicted to settling his differences with other boys by giving or accepting challenges to fight. But he was not in the least a milksop. Among the trivial remembrances of those days, the only outstanding recollection I have of Caine is quite characteristic of him. At one of the terminal examinations we were set to write a short English composition. The report of the examiner stated that one paper was unusual, coming from a class of boys of our years. This youthful production was graced by apt poetical quotations, illustrations of the theme set us — a unique feature in the examiner’s experience of boys of our standard.
I remember one of our class-mates remarking that it required some cheek to quote poetry in old— ‘s composition; but my own estimate of Caine increased by this and similar circumstances, and when I left for one of the larger grammar schools in the city, we were already great friends.”
It will be seen from the above that early in life Hall Caine was schooled to bear the unfriendly criticism and persecution of those who were unable to understand him. The schoolmaster mentioned by the Reverend William Pierce was Mr George Gill, the head of the well-known firm of publishers of schoolbooks. From the very first Mr Gill recognised that his young, sensitive pupil had remarkable powers, and that if all went well he would one day make a name for himself. In proof of this I should like to relate a story in connection with the first night of The Christian in London. Mr George Gill, now an old man, was in the stalls, his heart full of pride at the distinguished position his quondam pupil had gained.
The theatre was packed with a fashionable and intellectual audience. A play was about to be produced which had taken America by storm, and it was confidently expected that in England also the drama would achieve a tremendous success. Carried away by generous pride and enthusiasm, Mr Gill turned to those seated near him, exclaiming: “I always knew it! I always knew it! I said from the very first that the lad had genius, and to-night I am witnessing the proof of it.” The conduct of the old gentleman reflected the greatest credit on his heart and head alike, and it is a noteworthy instance of Hall Caine’s power of making and keeping friends.
But let me return to Mr Pierce’s reminiscences. “During the few years that followed,” he says, “my friendship with Caine met with little advance. I saw him occasionally only, and heard of his doings but at rare intervals. His people were attached to the large and important Baptist Church in Myrtle Street, presided over by Hugh Stowell Brown, himself a Manxman.
It was natural that young Caine should find here an opening for his budding faculties, though he never became one of the inner circle of the workers of the church. I used to hear of his occasional participation in the proceedings of a literary and debating society established at Myrtle Street. Without aiming at it, he easily drew attention to himself — in voice, in manner and in mental cast he was an exceptional youth. Meanwhile he was ‘something in the city.’”
Mr George Rose, another of his most intimate friends at this time, writes me that at the age of fifteen young Caine was apprenticed to an architect. “It was in a quiet spot,” continues Mr Rose, “somewhat remote from the part of the town where the activities of commerce were carried on. The daily routine of duties was not burdensome, and many of his hours were devoted to the self-imposed tasks of a literary nature, in which he delighted. Probably he dreamed, through many a quiet hour, of success to be gained in after years; if it were possible to recall some of those dreams and, by putting them together, to form the chart of a projected journey through life, it would be found to differ widely in many ways from the course he was ordained to follow. Perhaps the only points of coincidence which could be noticed would be the constant turning towards the Isle of Man that was never absent from any scheme of life upon which his fancy dwelt in youthful days.
“For those who hope to ‘make their way,’ London necessarily fills a large space in the map of life, and thither Hall Caine’s thoughts often turned. Then there were quiet joys in Lakeland to tempt the wanderer; but the little Man Island was the home to which return was to be made at last, and which was to have its scenes brightened by any glory that could be won in the outer world.
“Hall Caine was endowed by Nature with some graceful qualities which would have made him popular in whatever walk of life he chose to follow. Before it was known outside the circle of his friends that he possessed such remarkable qualities of mind he had already shown his power to hold the attention of audiences, and was well known and greatly esteemed in the wide district occupied by the southern portion of Liverpool. It was customary at that time to arrange ‘Readings’ for the amusement of the people. These entertainments were given by societies connected with places of worship, and were intended to have an educating and refining effect on the people who attended them. Hall Caine when very young was in great request at gatherings of that kind, and his presence on any platform was enthusiastically welcomed. He was of pleasing appearance, confident in his manner, and his countenance gave the impression that his disposition was genial. People were always happy to make his acquaintance, and when he began to speak, whether expressing his own thoughts or reciting some piece of poetry, the clear tone of his voice, the perfect enunciation of his words, his intense earnestness and effective dramatic style enabled him to hold the attention of an audience from his first word so long as he chose to address them. His taste lay in the selection of serious pieces; sometimes they were even a little beyond the comprehension of his hearers. He had given much attention to the study of the works of the Lake school of poets, and to those of the best writers of the eighteenth century. With these as models, he had formed for himself an ideal of perfection in language that, even in the excitement of speaking in public, he never lost sight of; and this, combined with his natural fluency of speech, raised his efforts to the level of oratory. The extent and variety of his reading tended to give a peculiar quaintness to some of his forms of expression. He sometimes introduced words and phrases borrowed from old authors, forgetting that they were no longer in common use. At other times the sense in which he used a word was different from that in which his hearers understood it. In connection with his work in the society of Myrtle Street Chapel he undertook to read a poem upon which he was then engaged; it was a romantic composition in blank verse. The subject was the return of a hero to his desolated native land, in defence of which he had been long absent on a distant journey. Although the poem was of considerable length it contained few characters and incidents, but its lines embodied Hall Caine’s ideal of a golden age. When he first turned his thoughts to literature as a profession his inclination would have led him to express his ideas in the form of poetry; in this particular his mind gradually changed. Next to poetry his desire was to become a journalist. During his holiday visits to the Isle of Man he found opportunities of contributing to the island newspapers, and soon his articles were so highly valued that his editor accepted everything that came from his pen. One little peculiarity in those articles was the source of much amusement to his friends in Liverpool. It was the frequent repetition of a pet phrase, ‘these three small islands,’ by which he meant Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man. If he had then been called upon to name them in the order of their importance he would undoubtedly have given the first place to Manxland.”
In connection with these articles mentioned by Mr Rose, I may say that they were written when their author was sixteen years of age. It has been my privilege to read many of them. They are noticeable for close reasoning and exceptionally wide reading for one so young. They were written in favour of the maintenance of Manx political institutions which, at that time, were threatened with annihilation. They are vehement but reasonable, and in no place does their author overstep the bounds of common-sense.
Again I quote Mr Rose. “One of Hall Caine’s favourite plans was an intention to write a drama. He had read that in some part of Germany there was a law by virtue of which an inquiry was made immediately after a man’s death into the extent of his possessions; and when it was found that he had evaded payment of any portion of the taxes to which a man of his means was liable, the whole of his property was forfeited to the State. The plot of Hall Caine’s intended drama was to be founded upon a tragic result of this custom. The principal idea of the story was that a wealthy merchant having entrusted to his confidential agent the duty of making the statements required by the law, the agent systematically falsified them, in order that on the death of the principal the agent might become an informer and bring about the forfeiture of the estate. The motive was that the daughter of the merchant, being rendered penniless, might be driven to accept the informer’s proposal of marriage.
“Such was the crude outline of the plot; but it was altered almost every day. He often talked about this project, but never spoke about the words of the play. It was the machinery of the play that he was concerned about, the number of the scenes and their order of succession, with other points of stage management. He wrote so easily that he felt no anxiety about his ability to accomplish the literary part of the design; but he believed that in a dramatic composition, however original and lofty the thoughts it contained, however perfect the expression of them, all would be wasted unless they were woven around a framework of method exactly adapted to meet the conditions of stage representation.
“Although the idea of writing such a play was never carried into effect, it served to show what direction Hall Caine’s thoughts were taking. Many of his contributions to Liverpool newspapers took the form of dramatic criticism. His mind was greatly influenced by the successes achieved by Henry Irving. It will be remembered that for some considerable time before Mr Irving appeared in the character of Hamlet, his intention to do so was known, and the degree in which his representation of the part would differ from that of other actors was the subject of lively discussion. Hall Caine interested himself deeply in the matter, and contributed many brilliant articles on the subject to various papers. He gave a great deal of attention to the study of Shakespeare’s writings, and his conversation on the subject was very interesting because of the light he was able to throw on the meaning of passages the importance of which would be overlooked by an ordinary reader. I heard him speak at a meeting of a literary society over which he presided for some time and which had enrolled many able men amongst its members. The subject was a reading of scenes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Some remarks had been made about the conversation of the conspirators which takes place as they stand in the garden of Brutus’s house. In talking together they allude to the dawn which they saw or pretended to see. Hall Caine insisted that the words were full of hidden meaning if properly emphasised by appropriate gesture. He quoted the speech of Casca in Act II., Scene 1. ‘Here as I point my sword, the sun arises;... some two months hence, up higher towards the north, he first presents his fire,’ and said it was necessary for the actor to bring out the true significance of the lines by pointing with his sword, first to the house of Cæsar, and then to that of Brutus, indicating the transfer of power to the latter which the conspirator desired to effect.”
This study of Shakespeare — a study close, intimate and unremitting — cannot be insisted on too strongly. Shakespeare and the Bible have from his earliest years been his chief mental food: his thoughts are coloured by the imagery of the Prophets, and his language has gained in terseness, vigour and force from the greatest poet who has ever lived.
I now resume Mr Pierce’s reminiscences. “He was becoming” (in about the year 1870, when Hall Caine was seventeen years of age) “more and more absorbed in literary studies, and quite early began to make acquaintance with the dramatists — not content, as most of us were, with reading the plays of Shakespeare only among the Elizabethans, but reading extensively and thoughtfully the writings of all the most notable playwrights of that great age. I was early struck by his references to the Jew of Malta. He would quote Ben Jonson’s Volpone, or from a play by Massinger, or Beaumont and Fletcher, or Webster, in a way which showed considerable familiarity with the literature of the time. These facts have more significance for me now than then, as I see in them the growth of his mind, and the evidence of an original impulse towards literary studies. It is difficult to explain how this solitary youth, amidst surroundings by no means suggestive of such studies, should have chosen this way of spending his hours of leisure; and by what instinct, in those early days when university extension lectures were yet unknown, before English literature as an educational subject was popularised, and before the publication of our modern guides and manuals for the help of the blundering tyro, Caine seized at once the salient points of the great subject, divining the place and importance of names not known to the merely well-informed multitude, least of all to youths who had not long left school.
“It was during this period that I began to renew my intimacy with Caine. It was probably due to some kindness on his part. He has a genius for friendship, and is capable of taking immeasurable pains in the service of those to whom he is attached; and he is, or perhaps I should say he was, one of the best and most faithful letter-writers I have ever known. I had left business and was studying Art and Literature in an easy, unmethodical, Bohemian fashion, drawing from the antique during the day, and exploring the poets and essayists in the evening, with desultory violin studies and excursions into Geology and Genesis by way of diversion and variety. Caine was interested in all these things; but he never aspired to sing or play, and made fun of his own drawings, though I believe he was really a skilful architectural draughtsman. He did one thing, one thing only, and he did it better than anyone else.
“Perhaps my knowledge of his mind during these early years is due to the fact that I left Liverpool about the close of 1871 for Carnarvon to take up a press appointment. Caine had no difficulty in communicating his thoughts in writing. I must have written him some account of my whereabouts, or have sent him copies of the newspaper on which I was engaged, or probably have done both things. And so a correspondence, to me most notable, began. Caine was principally responsible for its maintenance; he was the more regular and conscientious writer. His letters were often extraordinary with regard to their length, and more often extraordinary with regard to their contents. But in the most rapid and familiar of them there is a sense of style. He is full of qualifying clauses, inversions, interpolated interrogations, and exclamations, but the grammatical and logical close of each sentence is successfully reached. Still, though often somewhat formidable in length, and graced by literary ingenuities at times, they are letters, nevertheless, and not essays. There is no consciousness that a word in any one of them is ever to be seen by a third person. That they are less casual and simple in style than most letters addressed to familiar friends must be set down to the character of the writer. I remember a somewhat matter-of-fact schoolfellow, himself innocent enough of any refinement of speech or culture of mind, expressing his detestation of Caine because when you met him on the most ordinary occasions and conversed on the most trifling subjects, ‘he always spoke like a book.’ However, it was natural to Caine to dress his casual thoughts in refined and graceful language. His thoughts are grave and gay in his letters, and sometimes, indeed, he writes for the sake of writing; he likes playing with words and sentences. He is naturally communicative — tells his thoughts, and gossips about himself pleasantly. He has been gracing a friend’s essay on ‘War’ with a couple of stanzas. Not that he is a peace-at-any-price man; the stanzas, though not at all sanguinary, are highly patriotic. He has even delivered a Temperance lecture, and not without much appreciation on the part of the ancients who heard him; but he positively declines to pursue Fame on the Temperance platform. Then after a little pleasantry he hopes I am laughing, as he himself does at his own jokes; in the first place, for reasons of prudence — since none other might laugh save himself, and in the second place, because it is unchristianlike to ask another to do what you refuse to do yourself. One item startles us. He has just finished a play in blank verse, and inquires if I should like to peruse it.
