Delphi complete works of.., p.92
Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler, page 92
At these words Christina brightened. “You give me hope, you give me hope,” she cried, and dried her eyes. She made him assure her over and over again that this was his solemn conviction; she did not care about being a distinguished saint now; she would be quite content to be among the meanest who actually got into heaven, provided she could make sure of escaping that awful Hell. The fear of this evidently was omnipresent with her, and in spite of all Ernest could say he did not quite dispel it. She was rather ungrateful, I must confess, for after more than an hour’s consolation from Ernest she prayed for him that he might have every blessing in this world, inasmuch as she always feared that he was the only one of her children whom she should never meet in heaven; but she was then wandering, and was hardly aware of his presence; her mind in fact was reverting to states in which it had been before her illness.
On Sunday Ernest went to church as a matter of course, and noted that the ever receding tide of Evangelicalism had ebbed many a stage lower, even during the few years of his absence. His father used to walk to the church through the Rectory garden, and across a small intervening field. He had been used to walk in a tall hat, his Master’s gown, and wearing a pair of Geneva bands. Ernest noticed that the bands were worn no longer, and lo! greater marvel still, Theobald did not preach in his Master’s gown, but in a surplice. The whole character of the service was changed; you could not say it was high even now, for high-church Theobald could never under any circumstances become, but the old easy-going slovenliness, if I may say so, was gone for ever. The orchestral accompaniments to the hymns had disappeared while my hero was yet a boy, but there had been no chanting for some years after the harmonium had been introduced. While Ernest was at Cambridge, Charlotte and Christina had prevailed on Theobald to allow the canticles to be sung; and sung they were to old-fashioned double chants by Lord Mornington and Dr Dupuis and others. Theobald did not like it, but he did it, or allowed it to be done.
Then Christina said: “My dear, do you know, I really think” (Christina always “really” thought) “that the people like the chanting very much, and that it will be a means of bringing many to church who have stayed away hitherto. I was talking about it to Mrs Goodhew and to old Miss Wright only yesterday, and they quite agreed with me, but they all said that we ought to chant the ‘Glory be to the Father’ at the end of each of the psalms instead of saying it.”
Theobald looked black — he felt the waters of chanting rising higher and higher upon him inch by inch; but he felt also, he knew not why, that he had better yield than fight. So he ordered the “Glory be to the Father” to be chanted in future, but he did not like it.
“Really, mamma dear,” said Charlotte, when the battle was won, “you should not call it the ‘Glory be to the Father’ you should say ‘Gloria.’”
“Of course, my dear,” said Christina, and she said “Gloria” for ever after. Then she thought what a wonderfully clever girl Charlotte was, and how she ought to marry no one lower than a bishop. By-and-by when Theobald went away for an unusually long holiday one summer, he could find no one but a rather high-church clergyman to take his duty. This gentleman was a man of weight in the neighbourhood, having considerable private means, but without preferment. In the summer he would often help his brother clergymen, and it was through his being willing to take the duty at Battersby for a few Sundays that Theobald had been able to get away for so long. On his return, however, he found that the whole psalms were being chanted as well as the Glorias. The influential clergyman, Christina, and Charlotte took the bull by the horns as soon as Theobald returned, and laughed it all off; and the clergyman laughed and bounced, and Christina laughed and coaxed, and Charlotte uttered unexceptionable sentiments, and the thing was done now, and could not be undone, and it was no use grieving over spilt milk; so henceforth the psalms were to be chanted, but Theobald grisled over it in his heart, and he did not like it.
During this same absence what had Mrs Goodhew and old Miss Wright taken to doing but turning towards the east while repeating the Belief? Theobald disliked this even worse than chanting. When he said something about it in a timid way at dinner after service, Charlotte said, “Really, papa dear, you must take to calling it the ‘Creed’ and not the ‘Belief’”; and Theobald winced impatiently and snorted meek defiance, but the spirit of her aunts Jane and Eliza was strong in Charlotte, and the thing was too small to fight about, and he turned it off with a laugh. “As for Charlotte,” thought Christina, “I believe she knows everything.” So Mrs Goodhew and old Miss Wright continued to turn to the east during the time the Creed was said, and by-and-by others followed their example, and ere long the few who had stood out yielded and turned eastward too; and then Theobald made as though he had thought it all very right and proper from the first, but like it he did not. By-and-by Charlotte tried to make him say “Alleluia” instead of “Hallelujah,” but this was going too far, and Theobald turned, and she got frightened and ran away.
And they changed the double chants for single ones, and altered them psalm by psalm, and in the middle of psalms, just where a cursory reader would see no reason why they should do so, they changed from major to minor and from minor back to major; and then they got “Hymns Ancient and Modern,” and, as I have said, they robbed him of his beloved bands, and they made him preach in a surplice, and he must have celebration of the Holy Communion once a month instead of only five times in the year as heretofore, and he struggled in vain against the unseen influence which he felt to be working in season and out of season against all that he had been accustomed to consider most distinctive of his party. Where it was, or what it was, he knew not, nor exactly what it would do next, but he knew exceedingly well that go where he would it was undermining him; that it was too persistent for him; that Christina and Charlotte liked it a great deal better than he did, and that it could end in nothing but Rome. Easter decorations indeed! Christmas decorations — in reason — were proper enough, but Easter decorations! well, it might last his time.
This was the course things had taken in the Church of England during the last forty years. The set has been steadily in one direction. A few men who knew what they wanted made cats’ paws of the Christmas and the Charlottes, and the Christmas and the Charlottes made cats’ paws of the Mrs Goodhews and the old Miss Wrights, and Mrs Goodhews and old Miss Wrights told the Mr Goodhews and young Miss Wrights what they should do, and when the Mr Goodhews and the young Miss Wrights did it the little Goodhews and the rest of the spiritual flock did as they did, and the Theobalds went for nothing; step by step, day by day, year by year, parish by parish, diocese by diocese this was how it was done. And yet the Church of England looks with no friendly eyes upon the theory of Evolution or Descent with Modification.
My hero thought over these things, and remembered many a ruse on the part of Christina and Charlotte, and many a detail of the struggle which I cannot further interrupt my story to refer to, and he remembered his father’s favourite retort that it could only end in Rome. When he was a boy he had firmly believed this, but he smiled now as he thought of another alternative clear enough to himself, but so horrible that it had not even occurred to Theobald — I mean the toppling over of the whole system. At that time he welcomed the hope that the absurdities and unrealities of the Church would end in her downfall. Since then he has come to think very differently, not as believing in the cow jumping over the moon more than he used to, or more, probably, than nine-tenths of the clergy themselves — who know as well as he does that their outward and visible symbols are out of date — but because he knows the baffling complexity of the problem when it comes to deciding what is actually to be done. Also, now that he has seen them more closely, he knows better the nature of those wolves in sheep’s clothing, who are thirsting for the blood of their victim, and exulting so clamorously over its anticipated early fall into their clutches. The spirit behind the Church is true, though her letter — true once — is now true no longer. The spirit behind the High Priests of Science is as lying as its letter. The Theobalds, who do what they do because it seems to be the correct thing, but who in their hearts neither like it nor believe in it, are in reality the least dangerous of all classes to the peace and liberties of mankind. The man to fear is he who goes at things with the cocksureness of pushing vulgarity and self-conceit. These are not vices which can be justly laid to the charge of the English clergy.
Many of the farmers came up to Ernest when service was over, and shook hands with him. He found every one knew of his having come into a fortune. The fact was that Theobald had immediately told two or three of the greatest gossips in the village, and the story was not long in spreading. “It simplified matters,” he had said to himself, “a good deal.” Ernest was civil to Mrs Goodhew for her husband’s sake, but he gave Miss Wright the cut direct, for he knew that she was only Charlotte in disguise.
A week passed slowly away. Two or three times the family took the sacrament together round Christina’s death-bed. Theobald’s impatience became more and more transparent daily, but fortunately Christina (who even if she had been well would have been ready to shut her eyes to it) became weaker and less coherent in mind also, so that she hardly, if at all, perceived it. After Ernest had been in the house about a week his mother fell into a comatose state which lasted a couple of days, and in the end went away so peacefully that it was like the blending of sea and sky in mid-ocean upon a soft hazy day when none can say where the earth ends and the heavens begin. Indeed she died to the realities of life with less pain than she had waked from many of its illusions.
“She has been the comfort and mainstay of my life for more than thirty years,” said Theobald as soon as all was over, “but one could not wish it prolonged,” and he buried his face in his handkerchief to conceal his want of emotion.
Ernest came back to town the day after his mother’s death, and returned to the funeral accompanied by myself. He wanted me to see his father in order to prevent any possible misapprehension about Miss Pontifex’s intentions, and I was such an old friend of the family that my presence at Christina’s funeral would surprise no one. With all her faults I had always rather liked Christina. She would have chopped Ernest or any one else into little pieces of mincemeat to gratify the slightest wish of her husband, but she would not have chopped him up for any one else, and so long as he did not cross her she was very fond of him. By nature she was of an even temper, more willing to be pleased than ruffled, very ready to do a good-natured action, provided it did not cost her much exertion, nor involve expense to Theobald. Her own little purse did not matter; any one might have as much of that as he or she could get after she had reserved what was absolutely necessary for her dress. I could not hear of her end as Ernest described it to me without feeling very compassionate towards her, indeed her own son could hardly have felt more so; I at once, therefore, consented to go down to the funeral; perhaps I was also influenced by a desire to see Charlotte and Joey, in whom I felt interested on hearing what my godson had told me.
I found Theobald looking remarkably well. Every one said he was bearing it so beautifully. He did indeed once or twice shake his head and say that his wife had been the comfort and mainstay of his life for over thirty years, but there the matter ended. I stayed over the next day which was Sunday, and took my departure on the following morning after having told Theobald all that his son wished me to tell him. Theobald asked me to help him with Christina’s epitaph.
“I would say,” said he, “as little as possible; eulogies of the departed are in most cases both unnecessary and untrue. Christina’s epitaph shall contain nothing which shall be either the one or the other. I should give her name, the dates of her birth and death, and of course say she was my wife, and then I think I should wind up with a simple text — her favourite one for example, none indeed could be more appropriate, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.’”
I said I thought this would be very nice, and it was settled. So Ernest was sent to give the order to Mr Prosser, the stonemason in the nearest town, who said it came from “the Beetitudes.”
CHAPTER LXXXIV
On our way to town Ernest broached his plans for spending the next year or two. I wanted him to try and get more into society again, but he brushed this aside at once as the very last thing he had a fancy for. For society indeed of all sorts, except of course that of a few intimate friends, he had an unconquerable aversion. “I always did hate those people,” he said, “and they always have hated and always will hate me. I am an Ishmael by instinct as much as by accident of circumstances, but if I keep out of society I shall be less vulnerable than Ishmaels generally are. The moment a man goes into society, he becomes vulnerable all round.”
I was very sorry to hear him talk in this way; for whatever strength a man may have he should surely be able to make more of it if he act in concert than alone. I said this.
“I don’t care,” he answered, “whether I make the most of my strength or not; I don’t know whether I have any strength, but if I have I dare say it will find some way of exerting itself. I will live as I like living, not as other people would like me to live; thanks to my aunt and you I can afford the luxury of a quiet unobtrusive life of self-indulgence,” said he laughing, “and I mean to have it. You know I like writing,” he added after a pause of some minutes, “I have been a scribbler for years. If I am to come to the fore at all it must be by writing.”
I had already long since come to that conclusion myself.
“Well,” he continued, “there are a lot of things that want saying which no one dares to say, a lot of shams which want attacking, and yet no one attacks them. It seems to me that I can say things which not another man in England except myself will venture to say, and yet which are crying to be said.”
I said: “But who will listen? If you say things which nobody else would dare to say is not this much the same as saying what everyone except yourself knows to be better left unsaid just now?”
“Perhaps,” said he, “but I don’t know it; I am bursting with these things, and it is my fate to say them.”
I knew there would be no stopping him, so I gave in and asked what question he felt a special desire to burn his fingers with in the first instance.
“Marriage,” he rejoined promptly, “and the power of disposing of his property after a man is dead. The question of Christianity is virtually settled, or if not settled there is no lack of those engaged in settling it. The question of the day now is marriage and the family system.”
“That,” said I drily, “is a hornet’s nest indeed.”
“Yes,” said he no less drily, “but hornet’s nests are exactly what I happen to like. Before, however, I begin to stir up this particular one I propose to travel for a few years, with the especial object of finding out what nations now existing are the best, comeliest and most lovable, and also what nations have been so in times past. I want to find out how these people live, and have lived, and what their customs are.
“I have very vague notions upon the subject as yet, but the general impression I have formed is that, putting ourselves on one side, the most vigorous and amiable of known nations are the modern Italians, the old Greeks and Romans, and the South Sea Islanders. I believe that these nice peoples have not as a general rule been purists, but I want to see those of them who can yet be seen; they are the practical authorities on the question — What is best for man? and I should like to see them and find out what they do. Let us settle the fact first and fight about the moral tendencies afterwards.”
“In fact,” said I laughingly, “you mean to have high old times.”
“Neither higher nor lower,” was the answer, “than those people whom I can find to have been the best in all ages. But let us change the subject.” He put his hand into his pocket and brought out a letter. “My father,” he said, “gave me this letter this morning with the seal already broken.” He passed it over to me, and I found it to be the one which Christina had written before the birth of her last child, and which I have given in an earlier chapter.
“And you do not find this letter,” said I, “affect the conclusion which you have just told me you have come to concerning your present plans?”
He smiled, and answered: “No. But if you do what you have sometimes talked about and turn the adventures of my unworthy self into a novel, mind you print this letter.”
“Why so?” said I, feeling as though such a letter as this should have been held sacred from the public gaze.
“Because my mother would have wished it published; if she had known you were writing about me and had this letter in your possession, she would above all things have desired that you should publish it. Therefore publish it if you write at all.”
This is why I have done so.
Within a month Ernest carried his intention into effect, and having made all the arrangements necessary for his children’s welfare left England before Christmas.
I heard from him now and again and learnt that he was visiting almost all parts of the world, but only staying in those places where he found the inhabitants unusually good-looking and agreeable. He said he had filled an immense quantity of note-books, and I have no doubt he had. At last in the spring of 1867 he returned, his luggage stained with the variation of each hotel advertisement ‘twixt here and Japan. He looked very brown and strong, and so well favoured that it almost seemed as if he must have caught some good looks from the people among whom he had been living. He came back to his old rooms in the Temple, and settled down as easily as if he had never been away a day.
One of the first things we did was to go and see the children; we took the train to Gravesend, and walked thence for a few miles along the riverside till we came to the solitary house where the good people lived with whom Ernest had placed them. It was a lovely April morning, but with a fresh air blowing from off the sea; the tide was high, and the river was alive with shipping coming up with wind and tide. Sea-gulls wheeled around us overhead, sea-weed clung everywhere to the banks which the advancing tide had not yet covered, everything was of the sea sea-ey, and the fine bracing air which blew over the water made me feel more hungry than I had done for many a day; I did not see how children could live in a better physical atmosphere than this, and applauded the selection which Ernest had made on behalf of his youngsters.
