Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman
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Title: Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman
Author: I. Giberne Sieveking
Contributor: Francis William Newman
Release date: January 1, 2005 [eBook #7305]
Most recently updated: December 30, 2020
Language: English
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MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF FRANCIS W. NEWMAN
[Illustration: FROM A DAGUERREOTYPE OF 1851. PHOTO BY JOHN DAVIES,
WESTON-SUPER-MARE
Frontispiece]
MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF FRANCIS W. NEWMAN
BY
I. GIBERNE SIEVEKING
_outos ge axios estin epainesthai ostis an tois hetairois os teleion ti on
protithae to eu neoterizein taen ton pollon katastasin_
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY MOTHER
CONTENTS
TO THE READER WHO UNDERSTANDS.
I. FRANCIS NEWMAN'S ANCESTORS.
II. THE TWO BROTHERS--SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS.
III. FRANCIS NEWMAN'S MISSIONARY JOURNEY TO THE EAST.
IV. HIS MARRIAGE: HIS MOTHER'S DEATH: HIS CLASSICAL TUTORSHIP AT
BRISTOL IN 1834.
V. FRIENDSHIP WITH DR. MARTINEAU.
VI. FRANCIS NEWMAN AS A TEACHER.
VII. LETTERS TO ONE OF HIS GREATEST FRIENDS, DR. NICHOLSON.
VIII. LETTERS TO DR. NICHOLSON FROM NEWMAN DURING THE FOLLOWING YEARS:
1850 TO 1859.
IX. LETTERS TO DR. NICHOLSON: CONTINUED.
X. LETTERS WRITTEN TO MISS ANNA SWANWICK BETWEEN 1871 AND 1887.
XI. THE STORY OF TWO PATRIOTS.
XII. FOUR BARBARISMS OF CIVILIZATION.
XIII. SOME LEGISLATIVE REFORMS SUGGESTED BY LECTURE AND ARTICLE
XIV. DECENTRALIZATION AND LAND REFORM
XV. VEGETARIANISM
XVI. NATIVE REPRESENTATION IN INDIAN GOVERNMENT
XVII. VOTES FOR WOMEN
XVIII. FRANCIS NEWMAN AND HIS RELIGION
XIX. LAST YEARS, CHARACTERISTICS, AND SOME LETTERS RELATING TO THE
"EARLY LIFE OF THE CARDINAL"
XX. TOULMIN SMITH: AUTHOR, ANTIQUARIAN STUDENT, AND POLITICAL REFORMER
XXI. LANDOWNERS AND WAGE RECEIVERS
XXII. THE RIGHT AND DUTY OF EVERY STATE TO ENFORCE SOBRIETY ON ITS
CITIZENS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PHOTO OF FRANCIS NEWMAN
From a Daguerreotype of 1851. Photo by Mr. John Davies, Weston-super-Mare.
JOHN NEWMAN
Father of Cardinal Newman and Francis Newman. From an old portrait. By
kind permission of Mr. J. R. Mozley.
SEALE'S COFFEE HOUSE, OXFORD
Now demolished. Done from an old drawing in the year when Francis Newman
and John Henry Newman stayed there with Blanco White.
WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD
Specially photographed for this Memoir.
WORTON CHURCH, OXFORDSHIRE
From an old print. By kind permission of Rev. W. H. Langhorne.
HOLY TRINITY CHURCH, WEST END, OVER WORTON
By kind permission of Rev. W. H. Langhorne, present Rector of Worton.
OVER WORTON RECTORY, OXFORDSHIRE
By kind permission of Rev. W. H. Langhorne, present Rector of Worton.
PHOTO FROM SKETCH OF THE NEWMAN FAMILY
By Maria Rosina Giberne. By kind permission of Mr. J. R. Mozley.
MARIA ROSINA GIBERNE
From a painting by herself.
PHOTO OF LORD CONGLETON
Leader of Syrian Missionary Journey. From his _Life_ by Groves.
DR. CRONIN
One of those who went to Syria with Francis Newman in 1830. From a photo
by Messrs. Webster, Clapham Common. By kind permission of Mrs. Cronin.
PERSIAN LADY AND PERSIAN SMOKING, DATE 1827
From _Persia_ in "Modern Traveller" series, 1830.
MARIA KENNAWAY
Francis Newman's first wife. From a miniature. Photo by Messrs. Webster,
Clapham Common. By kind permission of Sir John Kennaway.
DR. MARTINEAU
From the painting by A. E. Elmslie.
FRANCIS NEWMAN
In middle age. From photo by John Davies, Weston-super-Mare.
PHOTO OF BRONZE BUST OF FRANCIS NEWMAN
Emeritus Professor of London University. By Mrs. Georgina Bainsmith,
sculptor, of St. Ives, Cornwall. The bust is now in University College,
London.
ANOTHER VIEW OF THE BUST IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE (OF FRANCIS NEWMAN), ON ITS
PLINTH
By Mrs. Georgina Bainsmith, sculptor, of St. Ives, Cornwall. This
reproduction is by Mr. J. C. Douglas, of St. Ives, Cornwall, and was
photographed from the clay before it was cast.
DR. NICHOLSON
From a photo taken at Göttingen between 1855 and 1860. By kind permission
of Miss Nicholson, Penrith.
FACSIMILE OF LETTER FROM FRANCIS NEWMAN, DECEMBER, 1855
20 WHITE ROCK PLACE, AND 1A CARLISLE PARADE, HASTINGS
From photos taken in 1909 by Valentine Edgar Sieveking.
ANNA SWANWICK
From a portrait painted by Miss V. Bruce.
LOUIS KOSSUTH
CERTIFICATE OF HUNGARIAN FUND
FACSIMILE OF LETTER FROM KOSSUTH TO MESSRS. SIEVEKING, JANUARY, 1854
TOULMIN SMITH
Enlargement from a photo. By kind permission of Miss Toulmin Smith.
CARDINAL NEWMAN
From an oil painting by Miss Deane, of Bath. Photo by Messrs. Webster,
Clapham Common.
TO THE READER WHO UNDERSTANDS
MY DEAR READER,
Rightly understood, the two points of view, as regards Religion, of the
brothers, Cardinal Newman and Francis Newman, which most separated them,
would, together, have approached the realization of a great conception.
For the Cardinal, Authority was the _sine quâ non_ without which there
could be no real faith. Authority was the pilot, without whose steering he
could not feel secure in his personal ship. But with Authority at the
helm, his fears dispersed, his doubts removed.
"I was not ever thus.....
I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead Thou me on!"
Over Francis Newman, dogma and the authority of the Church had no sway. He
dimly discerned a religion which should move forward with men's advance in
knowledge. He imagined an unformalized inward revelation which should
reveal new truths to those who passionately desired Truth above all
things. And when all is said, the union of Authority given in the past,
with the very real mental development which makes for spiritual progress
in the present, is not antagonistic to a wise, strong breadth of view in
the conception of a perfect Church.
But in both points of view, carried to extremes, there are grave perils to
the man who thinks. And I find it impossible to avoid saying here that
Francis Newman did not realize this risk when he refused to "ask for the
old paths," and determined to "see and choose his path" alone and unaided.
We know what the endeavour to found a new church in Syria ended in. We
know how, later, he wrote, held back by no reverence for revealed
religion, no reverence for other men's belief in it. Many of his writings
therefore are painful reading. Though from very early boyhood he had been
really a keen seeker after true religion, an earnest student of the Holy
Scriptures, and a deep thinker, yet, very soon after he had reached young
manhood, it began to be realized by all who knew him that he was very
evidently breaking away from all definite dogmatic faith. He was bent, so
to speak, on inventing a new religion for himself.
Gradually every year made the spiritual breach wider between him and those
who held the Christian Faith. Soon he did not hesitate to say out, in very
unguarded language, what he really thought of doctrines which he knew were
precious to them. Sometimes to-day, indeed, in reading his books, one
comes across some statement in letter, article, or lecture flung out
almost venomously; and one steps back mentally as if a spiritual hiss had
whipped the air from some inimical sentence which had suddenly lifted its
heretical head from amongst an otherwise quiet group of words.
At the end of life it is said that he showed signs of some return to the
early faith of his boyhood. That he said, just before his death, to Rev.
Temperley Grey, who was visiting him in his last illness, "I feel Paul is
less and less to me; and Christ is more and more."
And those who knew that side of him which was splendid in its untiring
effort for the betterment of mankind--for the righting of wrongs to women,
and others unable to achieve it for themselves--cannot but hope that the
faith of earlier days was his once more, before he passed into the silence
that lies--as far as we are concerned in this world--at the back of Death.
I remember being told once, that of Stanley it was said by someone who
knew him well, that she had always felt that "he believed more than he
knew he did."
And when one thinks how Francis Newman looked up in faith--even though it
was an absolutely undogmatic, formless faith--to a God who watched over
mankind, one may hope that he too "believed more than he knew he did."
This life is only a short chapter in our existence. Personality is in its
essence immortal, though not unchanging in its presentment. Some of us
have many "phases of faith" even in this short existence. Some of us, like
St. Paul, only two. The first, fiery in its denunciations, and
persecutions and uncompromising attitude towards all who differed from him
as regards the Faith which afterwards, "when the scales had fallen from
his eyes," he was to champion. The second, just as splendid in its
enthusiasm for the doctrine he had formerly abused. Just as passionate in
righting the wrongs of the people, as once in his first phase of faith he
had been in enforcing persecution and injustice upon them. By now, Newman
may have gained _his_ second sight. Whatever was the shortsightedness of
Francis Newman's spiritual focus, there can be no manner of doubt that
_he_ was an earnest seeker after Truth, though his methods of search were
sorely to be regretted, in so far as doctrinal theory was concerned, as in
his judgments on his brother's career.
According to his lights he lived his life. It was a life spent always in
untiring, unselfish effort for the good of his fellows. He was always in
the forefront of Social Reform, of social high principle and justice. He
was, at any rate, one with St. Paul--that champion of Christian Socialism
--in his attitude towards that larger half of mankind whose wrongs need
righting. He, too, practically said by his life, "Who is weak, and _I_ am
not weak? Who is afflicted, and I _burn_ not?" to avenge the injustice.
To-day, if more of Francis Newman's social views were voiced again,
England might take a glad step forward. For, undoubtedly, he _had_ a
message to deliver. And, equally undoubtedly, he delivered it to his
generation.
This message of Social Reform sounded in men's ears fifty years ago.
In his memoir it sounds again to-day.
My very hearty thanks are due to the following persons who have most
kindly helped me in this "Memoir," by lending me letters and photographs;
by writing reminiscences, and giving information, etc.: Sir John Kennaway,
Bart., Sir Alfred Wills, Sir Edward Fry, Mr. William de Morgan, Father
Bacchus, Mr. Talfourd Ely, Mr. Winterbotham, the present Rector of Worton,
Mr. Norris Mathews, Mr. George Hare Leonard, Mr. George Pearson, Miss
Humphreys, Miss Nicholson, Mrs. Heather (_née_ Wilson), Miss Bruce, Miss
Toulmin Smith, Miss Gertrude Martineau, Miss Elizabeth Pearson, Mrs.
Georgina Bainsmith, sculptor, Rev. Thomas Smith, Mrs. Kingsley Tarpey, Dr.
Makalua, and many others.
I. GIBERNE SIEVEKING.
1 EXMOUTH PLACE, HASTINGS.
MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF FRANCIS W. NEWMAN
CHAPTER I
HIS ANCESTORS
Of all the influences which have most to do in the making of an
individual, heredity is perhaps the greatest. It is the crucible in which
the gold and dross of many generations of his ancestors are melted down
and remixed in the man, who is, indeed, "a part of all" from whom he
claims descent.
There is no more engrossing study than to trace back through many a
century of ancestors, the various--often conflicting--elements which go to
make up the character of someone whose life (without the clue given by the
history of his forbears) is often a strange contradiction. Unable to
understand some disability which spoils an otherwise fine personality, one
looks back and there is the explanation. One's finger rests on the _raison
d'être_ of this disability. Long since it had its birth, its inauguration,
in the squeeze, so to speak, into that strange crucible, of the taint, the
essence, of some ancestor's moral lapses, or of the effect of his moral,
mental, or physical ill-health.
Dr. Maudsley says very definitely that the faults, the disabilities, of
men and women of to-day, are sometimes an undesirable inheritance. "Mental
derangement in one generation is sometimes the cause of an innate
deficiency, or absence of the moral sense in the succeeding generation."
I remember once hearing a London doctor strongly emphasize the need for
every family to keep a careful, conscientious family record book, which
from generation to generation should act as a _vade mecum_--showing what
failings must be fought at all costs, and what connections avoided, if we
would not perpetuate disease. Such a thing, if done universally, might
check many national evils in our midst to-day.
But even with no definite aim of this kind, the study of a long chain of
ancestors of some great man cannot fail to be of special interest. And
those of the subject of this memoir contain among their number many
honourable names--names of those who have done real and unforgettable
service to their country.
* * * * *
Francis Newman's father, John Newman, is said to have belonged to a family
of small landed proprietors in Cambridgeshire, who originally came from
Holland--the name having been formerly spelt "Newmann." Thus it will be
seen, as I shall shortly show, that Francis Newman had Dutch blood in his
veins, both on his father's and mother's side.
[Illustration: JOHN NEWMAN
FATHER OF CARDINAL NEWMAN AND FRANCIS NEWMAN
FROM AN OLD PORTRAIT. BY KIND PERMISSION OF MR. J. R. MOZLEY]
John Newman was the only son of John Newman of Lombard Street, London, and
of Elizabeth Good, his wife. The arms granted the family on 15th Feb.,
1663-4, were _Or, fers dancettee between 3 hearts gules_. John Newman, the
father of Francis Newman, was partner in the banking house of Ramsbottom,
Newman and Co. He married Jemima Fourdrinier, 29th Oct., 1799, at St.
Mary's, Lambeth. [Footnote: She died at Littlemore, Oxon, at the age of
sixty-two.] In the portrait of him, which is shown in this memoir, there
is a strong resemblance to his son Francis.
By this marriage there were seven children. John Henry (the future
Cardinal), was the eldest. He was born 21st Feb., 1801. Charles Robert was
the second son; and Francis William, the third son, was born 27th June,
1805. Harriette Elizabeth was the eldest daughter, Jemima Charlotte the
second, and Mary Sophia, who was born in 1809, only lived to the age of
nineteen.
Francis Newman's ancestry, on his mother's side, is proved to have reached
back as far as 1575; of this one can be reasonably certain. It was then,
that Henri Fourdrinier was born at Caen, in Normandy. He was made Admiral
of France in later life, and crested Viscount. ARMS: _per bend argent and
sable, two anchors, the upper one reversed, counterchanged._ His son was
also Henri Fourdrinier. Indeed, the name "Henri" seemed like some rare
jewel which was bequeathed from father to son in never-failing regularity,
for there was always a "Henri" among the Fourdriniers from 1575 until
1766.
It was during the lifetime of this Henri Fourdrinier, the son of Admiral
Fourdrinier, that the family fled from France to Groningen, in Holland. In
all probability this flitting took place during those endless civil wars
which disturbed France at that time. Possibly at the time when the heavy
taxes imposed on the people made it almost impossible to live. The
"Fronde" was ravaging the country too, in 1648, and for four years later.
Of course it is possible that he did not leave France until 1685, when the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes took place. But at whatever date he
actually went, his reasons for going were certainly no small ones. For
more than a hundred years the Huguenots--and the Fourdriniers were noted
Huguenots--had found France more and more an impossible country to live
in. Persecutions, massacres, torturings pursued them relentlessly.
Thousands of French Huguenots emigrated to England, Holland, and Germany.
And great was the loss which their emigration caused to France. For they
were the most intelligent and hardworking part of the French population,
so that when Louis XIV drove them away, he found out, only too surely, the
truth of the old proverb, that "Curses come home to roost." Trade slowly
but surely forsook France. The emigrants taught their arts and
manufactures to the countries where they had taken refuge; and gradually
trade guided its ships in their direction, and changed their course from
France to Holland and Germany.
The next entry [Footnote: I quote from a copy I had made from _Miscellanea
Genealogica et Heraldica_, N.S. III, 385.--_Pedigree of Fourdrinier and
Grolleau_, by Rev. Dr. Lee, Vicar of All Saints, Lambeth.] is dated from
Groningen, and concerns the birth of Paul Fourdrinier, 20th Dec., 1698.
Now in the _Dict. Nat. Biography_ there occurs the name of Peter
Fourdrinier, of whom no mention at all is made in the _Miscellanea
Genealogica et Heraldica_, amongst the record of the other Fourdriniers.
It is therefore not very clear to what branch of the family he belonged.
But as far as I can make out, he and Paul Fourdrinier seem to have come to
England about 1720. Certainly, in October, 1721, the latter's marriage
with Susanna Grolleau took place, as far as one can discover, in or near
Wandsworth. Susanna Grolleau died in 1766, and was buried at Wandsworth.
Here, I think, a few words with regard to the Grolleau family seem to be
called for.
Louis Grolleau, early in the seventeenth century, lived at Caen; and later
emigrated to Groningen. To me, everything seems to point to the fact that
the Fourdriniers and Grolleaus were in some way connected, either in
friendship or relationship. First, we find them resident at Caen: later,
at Groningen; and then again, later on still, members of both families
marry at Wandsworth, and there both Paul Fourdrinier's wife and her
sister, who married the son of a Captain Lloyd, are buried.
This Peter Fourdrinier mentioned by the _Dict. Nat. Biography_ seems to
have been pupil to Bernard Picart, at Amsterdam, for six years. By
profession he was an engraver of portraits and book illustrations. I
believe there are portraits extant engraved by him of Cardinal Wolsey and
Bishop Tonstall, amongst others. There is certainly an engraving of his
called _The Four Ages of Man_, after Laucret.
Some authorities believe him to have been identical with the Pierre
Fourdrinier who married, in 1689, Marthe Theroude. But if this was the
case, then he was not the Peter Fourdrinier who accompanied Paul to
England in 1720. Other authorities, again, attribute the engravings I have
just mentioned as having been the work of Paul Fourdrinier. At any rate,
it is certain that Paul Fourdrinier belonged to the parish of St.
Martin's-in-the-Fields. He died in February, 1758, and was buried at
Wandsworth.
His son Henry--by now the English spelling of the name is adopted--was
born February, 1730. He married Jemima White, and died in 1799. Apparently
now for the first time the interest in the town of Wandsworth ceased, for
the records show that both Henry and his wife were buried in St. Mary
Woolnoth. And now we come to the direct ancestors of Francis Newman, for
Henry Fourdrinier and Jemima White, his wife, were the parents of Jemima,
who married at St. Mary's, Lambeth, in 1799, John Newman of the firm of
Ramsbottom, Newman & Co., and gave birth in 1801 to John Henry, the future
Cardinal, and in 1805 to the subject of this memoir, Francis William.
* * * * *
In _Civil Architecture_, by Chambers, it is mentioned that the plates were
engraved by "old Rooker, old Fourdrinier, and others," thus seeming to
imply that there was more than one Fourdrinier then in England.
Perhaps the most interesting of all the Fourdrinier family was the Henry
Fourdrinier, the eldest brother to the mother of Francis Newman. He was
born in 1766 at Burston Hall, Staffordshire, and lived until 1854. His
father was a paper-maker, and both he and his brother Sealey (born 1747,
and married Harriett, daughter of James Pownall, of Wilmslow) gave up
their time almost entirely to the invention of paper machinery. This
invention was finished in 18O7, [Footnote: _Dict. Nat. Biog._ Vol. XX.]
and then misfortune fell upon them: the misfortune that so often descends
like the "black bat night" upon those who have spent all their money,
thought, and labour on the effort to launch their self-designed ship upon
the uncertain sea of trade.
The Fourdrinier brothers had spent £60,000 upon this venture, and the
immediate result of the finished invention was bankruptcy to the
unfortunate inventors. Then, in 1814, the Emperor Alexander of Russia
promised to pay them £700 per annum during the space of ten years if he
could use two of their paper-making machines. Of this sum they saw not a
penny.
In 1840, Parliament voted the sum of £7000 to the Fourdriniers as a tardy
recognition of the great service they had rendered their adopted country
by their invention. The descendant of these gifted men showed no special
taste for invention along the lines taken by his ancestors, it is true;
but his brilliant intellect, no doubt, owed many of its qualities to their
inventive force and power. Where they made paper and spent their whole
energies in inventing machines for making it quicker, Francis Newman wrote
on it--used it as a medium for spreading far and wide his own splendid
aims and purposes for the betterment of existing social conditions. Before
all things, Newman was a Social Reformer. There was no possible doubt
that, as far as that question went, he left his country further forward on
the road to real progress as regarded conditions of life for her citizens,
and higher, broader ideas of her duty to other nations. As far as all
these questions went he did not live in vain, for to-day we are learning
the wisdom of his views for justice for the oppressed and for "the cause
that needs assistance."
He was essentially one of those rare men who _prefer_ to be on the weaker
side, and whose sword is ever ready for its defence and championship.
CHAPTER II
THE TWO BROTHERS--SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS
Francis William Newman was born at 17 Southampton Street, Bloomsbury
Square, on 27th June, 1805. His father was a London banker. Rev. T.
Mozley, in his _Reminiscences of Oriel_, says he was partner in the firm
of "Ramsbottom, Newman, Ramsbottom & Co., 72 Lombard Street, which appears
in the lists of London bankers from 1807 to 1816 inclusive." He tells us
that the family of "Newman" (or, as it was originally spelt, "Newmann")
was of Dutch extraction. The father of Francis Newman had great schemes
for making England "independent of foreign timber by planking all our
waste lands."
In 1800 John Newman married Jemima Fourdrinier, and in the year 1801 John
Henry, the future Cardinal, was born. The latter and the subject of our
memoir were in effect the two sheaves before whom all the rest bowed down.
There were four other children: Charles Robert, Harriette Elizabeth,
Jemima Charlotte, and Mary Sophia.
[Illustration: SEALE'S COFFEE HOUSE, OXFORD
(NOW DEMOLISHED)
Done from an old drawing in the year when Francis Newman and John Henry
Newman stayed there with Blanco White.]
John Henry and Francis went to a school at Ealing (of which Dr. Nicholas
was head-master), then, as Mr. Mozley says, considered the best
preparatory school in the country. There were three hundred boys there at
that time, but none were so brilliant or showed so much talent as the two
Newmans. One after the other they rose to the top of the school. Frank was
captain in 1821. There was some talk of removing John Henry after he had
spent some years there, but he himself begged to be allowed to remain a
little longer. Miss Anne Mozley, in her _Life and Correspondence of John
Henry Newman_, quotes Dr. Nicholas as having said, "No boy had run through
the school from bottom to top as rapidly as John Newman." He was eight and
a half years at Ealing; yet during the whole of that time, it is reported
that his school-fellows declared they had hardly ever seen him play in any
game, though at that time games did not occupy the prominent place in the
curriculum of schools that now they do in our day.
It was not until his last half-year that one of the greatest spiritual
influences of his life began. It was one of those seemingly curious
chances which sometimes change a man's, or a woman's, whole outlook; and
beginning, as it seems at the time, quite casually, quite unconsciously,
lead not only the one chiefly concerned, but others, far afield into
absolutely new environments.
Quite, as it seems, by chance, the destiny of a lifetime approaches
through the conventional door of everyday life--steals up, lays the hand
that none can resist on the handle of some door which opens of itself into
a new, a wider world. Before one is aware of it, perhaps, one's feet have
crossed the threshold into the Land of the New Outlook, and "old things
are passed away."
In August, 1816, John Henry Newman found himself at school, in a sense
alone, because his special personal friends there had left, and thus he
began to be thrown more and more under the influence of the Rev. Walter
Mayer (of Pembroke College, Oxford), who was one of the classical masters.
Long religious talks with him had a great effect upon his mind, and he
himself traces much of his spiritual development to Mr. Mayer's point of
view in religion. He was what is known as a "high Calvinist." When school
was over for John Henry and Francis Newman, Mr. Mayer's influence was not
lost, for both the brothers wrote to him, and stayed with him, when some
time later he became curate to the Rev. William Wilson at Worton.
When his brother left school and went straight to Trinity College, Oxford
(though only fifteen years of age), Frank remained on at Ealing for a
time; and then, when he was seventeen, went up to Oxford to join him, and
be with him through the Long Vacations in preparation for entering
Worcester College in 1822. [Footnote: They lodged first at Scale's Coffee
House in 1821, then at Palmer's, in Merton Lane, in 1822. Both now are
pulled down.] In Anne Mozley's volume there occur several entries
regarding this time from J. H. Newman's letters. For instance, on 25th
Sept., "Expecting to see Frank. I am in fact expecting to see you all. I
shall require you to fill him full of all of you, that when he comes I may
squeeze and wring him out as some sponge."
It is necessary, before touching further on the college life of the two
famous brothers, to remember that early in life there was a strong
spiritual antagonism between them as regarded their points of view--
religious, social, political, etc. And this notwithstanding the fact that
a very real affection for each other existed in both, which made the
inevitable disputes in no sense unfriendly bouts, but only the exercise of
two keen wits of very different calibre.
[Illustration: WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD
VIEW OF COLLEGE BUILDINGS FROM THE GARDENS]
[Illustration: WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD
FRONT QUADRANGLE]
Both had been trained in a home of strict Calvinism. Both had eminently
religious tendencies. Both, when the time came for judging for themselves,
threw aside the grim tenets which they had been taught as children to
believe, and struck into absolutely different paths.
There is a very pathetic incident in their home life, which occurred just
before Frank Newman went to college, which reveals to the thoughtful
reader a world of information as to what was the attitude of thought in
that household.
I quote from J. H. Newman's diary:--
"Sept. 30, 1821. Sunday. After dinner to-day I was suddenly called
downstairs to give an opinion whether I thought it a sin to write a letter
on Sunday. I found dear F---- had refused to copy one. A scene ensued more
painful than any I have experienced." And adds, "I have been sadly
deficient in ... patience, and filial obedience."
I quote this chiefly to show that at sixteen Francis Newman [Footnote: In
later years Francis Newman declared that he had been "converted" in 1816,
and again confirmed in religious conviction in 1819, from the influence of
the writings of Dr. Doddridge.] was certainly under the Calvinistic
influence still, and that he was very dogged in upholding its rules and
restrictions. During the last months of the year 1822, the latter read
with his brother at Oxford, and from time to time, in his letters home, J.
H. Newman mentions him [Footnote: _Letters and Correspondence of J. H.
Newman_, by Anne Mozley.] as working and reading in preparation for
entering Worcester College.
"Frank ... seems to have much improved.... I am convinced that he knows
much of Greek as a language, in fact is a much better Greek scholar than
I.... Again, he is a much better mathematician than I am. I mean, he reads
more mathematically, as Aristotle would say."
It is necessary here to mention a great blow which fell on the Newman
family soon after John Henry Newman had gone to college. His father's bank
failed. There was no bankruptcy, and everyone was paid in full, but still
it naturally proved a time of great family trial; for though his father
took the Alton brewery and tried to make his way in this new line, yet it
was not a successful venture. Happily, by this time, J. H. Newman was not
only able to maintain himself, but also to help his people. Rev. T. Mozley
mentions that in 1823 Newman had been elected to a Fellowship at Oriel,
adding that "it was always a comfort to him that he had been able to give
his father" (who did not live many years after the bankruptcy), "this good
news at a time of great sorrow and embarrassment."
In 1826 Francis Newman took first-class honours in classics and
mathematics, and gained a Fellowship in Balliol College. The college
authorities described his as one of the best "Double Firsts" ever known.
As, however, he felt conscientiously unable to sign the Thirty-nine
Articles, he was obliged to resign his Fellowship, and could not take his
M.A. degree.
Many a man must have felt in his inmost self that a bona fide signing to
_all_ of the Articles was a task beyond his mental reach. There are points
in numbers 8, 17, 22, 25, for instance, which are difficult indeed to
reconcile with the highest ideal of the Christian religion. One looks at
the reprinted introduction (1562) which prefaces them, and one sees that
_it_ was traceable to that irreligious old sensualist, the father of Queen
Elizabeth. One sees that it dated back to the time when the Church in this
country began to be more especially "by _Law_ established," instead of "by
Christ established," as was the case in early ages of its formation. One
sees, too, that part of the reasons for this preface being set forth was
very evidently the reiteration of the kingly assertion that "We are
Supreme Governor of the Church of England," although the ostensible reason
was because of the "curious and unhappy differences" which seemed, in His
Majesty's opinion, to show the wisdom of decisive adjudication with
respect to those "fond things vainly invented," for which some of his
subjects had so great an affection.
Francis Newman by the time he had reached the age of twenty-five, however,
had been finding out, more and more, that he could not receive most of the
Church dogmas. While his brother and he had been practically re-adapting
to their needs and growing personal convictions the Calvinistic religion
(some writers, I am aware, consider that to have been more Puritan than
Calvinistic), given them by their mother in their childhood days, John
Henry Newman had drawn ever closer to the authority of the Church, while
Francis found himself seceding more and more from her, and more and more
drifting into undogmatic religion. It will be remembered that there had
been originally an idea that he should take Holy Orders. This, however,
very soon during his college life he found to be impracticable of
attainment, owing to his own pronounced and undogmatic views.
At that time, Cardinal Newman has said, earnest religious feeling among
the undergraduates was decidedly rare. Only one in every five could be
called religious-minded. So that the influence of these two young men,
whose very evident purpose was to attain some measure of spiritual truth,
was the more remarkable and powerful among their fellow students.
It was J. H. Newman, indeed, on one occasion who, on remonstrating with
those in authority, that the undergraduates should make their communions
at certain stated intervals because of the fact that he himself had seen
some of them get intoxicated at the college "breakfasts" on the _very_ day
after the service--was met by the remark that even if such a thing _did_
happen, they would rather not know of it!
Not far from Oxford there is a little village called Worton (or W_a_rton,
as I see in old papers it used to be spelt), or rather there are two
villages--Over Worton and Nether Worton, or Upper Worton and Lower Worton.
They lie between Banbury and Woodstock, near Oxford. Mr. Bateman, in his
_Life of Bishop Wilson_ (1860), says "their united population, consisting
of farmers and agricultural labourers, does not exceed two hundred." From
one village to the other is a distance of about three-quarters of a mile,
or perhaps a little less by the field path. Mr. Bateman says that before
Bishop Wilson came, "the church was much neglected, as a sporting curate
used to race through the services so as to get through in as little time
as possible."
Mr. Wilson revolutionized all this. He was accustomed to preach straight
to "his people." He seems, indeed, to have preached too "straight" for
some, for after some sermon he had given in an adjoining parish, a lady
who had "sat under him" said to her vicar, "_Pray_ do not let Mr. Wilson
preach here again. He alarms me so."
I am indebted to the Rev. W. H. Langhorne, present Rector of Worton, for
the following information about the place. He tells me that the church is
of the thirteenth or fourteenth century; Early decorated, but so altered
by Derick in 1844 "as almost to destroy its identity." The chalice in Over
Worton Church has the date 1574 upon it. The rectory is about one hundred
years old. The low building attached to it on the left (in the photograph)
was added in 1823. The parish of the two Wortons has for years been a
family living in the possession of the Wilsons, so an old friend, a
relation of Bishop Wilson, tells me. It was at Worton Church that John
Newman preached his first sermon, 23rd June, 1825.
Rev. Walter Mayers went as curate, in 1823, to Rev. William Wilson, and
took charge of Worton parish. In the following year he met--and later
married--my aunt Sarah Giberne. She and her sister had been staying with
Rev. and Mrs. William Wilson, and it was there that Mayers first made her
acquaintance. Mr. Mayers asked Frank Newman, during the Long Vacation, to
come and help him in teaching the pupils who came to read with him at
Worton. Newman was then nineteen. He had been four years longer at the
Ealing School, under the tuition of Walter Mayers, than his brother, who
had gone to Oxford, according to the notion prevalent at that time, at
about the age of fifteen or sixteen. Francis Newman says, consequently, "I
knew him (Mayers) much better than did my brother.... He allured me to his
new curacy, three miles from Deddington, Oxon, to help him in mathematics
with his pupils; first 1822, and again in 1823, after his marriage."
It was in connection with this marriage of Mr. Mayers to Sarah Giberne
that the two families of Newman and Giberne first became acquainted, and
that friendship began which lasted throughout their lives.
Sarah Giberne was the daughter of Mark Giberne, who, in partnership with
Mr. George Stainforth, was court wine merchant in 1750. He came of an old
French family, descended from the noble Jean de Giberne, Sieur de
Gibertène, in the sixteenth century. The family owned two castles in the
country of the Cevennes, which were destroyed by the Camisards. In the
seventeenth century some of the family came over and settled in England,
and it was from this branch of it that Gabriel de Giberne, secretary to
Sir Horace Mann, was descended, and from his son Mark--Sarah Giberne--who
married Rev. Walter Mayers.
I shall now give extracts from the diary of Mrs. Benjamin Pearson (_née_
Charlotte Elizabeth Giberne), to which I have access through the kindness
of my cousin, Mr. George Pearson. It was in the spring of 1823 that Sarah
and Charlotte Giberne spent a week with John Whitmore and his wife, Maria,
the daughter of their father's partner, Mr. Stainforth (of the firm
"Stainforth & Giberne"). Mrs. Pearson mentions that they both helped her
and her sisters to a "knowledge of the Scriptures and of the Christian
life."
[Illustration: WORTON CHURCH, OXFORDSHIRE
FROM AN OLD PRINT
BY KIND PERMISSION OF REV. V. H. LANGHORNE]
[Illustration: HOLY TRINITY, WEST END, OVER WORTON, MAY, 1905
BY KIND PERMISSION OF REV. W. H. LANGHORNE, PRESENT RECTOR OF WORTON]
"We were introduced by Maria, Mrs. Whitmore, about June, 1823, to a good
clergyman who had lately come to reside at Walthamstow, about two miles
from our home" (they were living at Wanstead), "the Rev. William Wilson,
who received us into his friendship, and whose preaching we attended with
joy and profit for several years.
"It was on Christmas Day of this year, I think, that we first heard the
Rev. Walter Mayers preach from Nahum i. 7 a most beautiful experimental
discourse which impressed us very much. On making enquiry concerning him,
we found that he was Mr. Wilson's curate at Worton, in Oxfordshire, and
that he received pupils into his house. Later, their brother, Charles
Giberne, was sent for a year to him. This led to Mr. Mayers being invited
to dinner at our house. There he formed an attachment to Sarah, to whom he
was married the following year, 1824.
"In the midsummer holidays, 1825, I went to pay a visit to Walter and
Sarah, and it was then I first made acquaintance with John and Frank
Newman. The latter was spending the Long Vacation with Mr. Mayers to
assist him in teaching the young men, though he was only nineteen. Among
these pupils was Charles Baring, seventeen years old, afterwards Bishop of
(the Palatinate see) Durham.
"John Newman walked over from Oxford to breakfast one morning: he was then
twenty-four, and a most interesting young man; but him I only saw then
once, whereas his brother (Frank) was our daily companion, and took great
pains in instructing Sarah (Mrs. Walter Mayers) and myself in Political
Economy. His talents and piety attracted my admiration, for I had never
seen such young men before. They had both been pupils of Mr. Mayers at a
large school at Ealing (in which he was a master), and were considered to
be converted in very early life."
Later on is another entry:--
"In the midsummer holidays of 1825" (John Henry Newman was ordained priest
on 29th May, 1825), "I went to stay with Walter and Sarah Mayers, and then
began my first acquaintance with John Henry Newman and his brother Frank.
The former having walked over from Oxford, seventeen miles, to breakfast,
and repeating Milman's beautiful hymn from the _Martyr of Antioch_,
'Brother, thou art gone before us.'
"He was just twenty-four, and his brother Frank, who came soon after to
assist Walter Mayers with his pupils ... was only twenty, but as bright a
specimen of a young Oxford student as I had ever met with. They had both
been considered converted in early youth, and so uncommon an event was it
to me to meet with Christian young men" (men, that is, whose religion was
their motive power, and not only used in the conventional and cold
formality then usual in the case of so many families in England), "that my
admiration knew no bounds. Of course, I told my sister Maria ... all this,
and she was quite prepared to appreciate in like manner, when she went to
stay at Worton the following summer."
We come now to the time which, whether for happiness or regret, inevitably
enters into the lives of most men on this earth--the time when they first
meet "the Woman they Never Forget." It does not follow that they are able
to marry her, but it _does_ follow that, meet whom they may later, no one
will ever oust from her place that first woman in their memories.
Francis Newman was only twenty-one when he first met her.
Maria Rosina Giberne was a beautiful girl, possessing special charm of
manner. It was not long after his first meeting with her that Frank Newman
fell passionately in love with her. Long talks on scientific and religious
subjects passed between them. But though he cared for her, evidently her
feeling for him was only that of friendship and interest, for when, later,
he asked her to marry him, she refused. He did not, however, take this for
an absolutely final decision (as in effect it was), for five or six years
later, when he was on his missionary journey to Syria, and he wrote and
begged her to give him a different answer, she refused him again.
[Illustration: OVER WORTON RECTORY, OXFORDSHIRE
BY KIND PERMISSION OF REV. W. H. LANGHORNE, PRESENT RECTOR OF WORTON]
The extracts that follow are from her diary of the summer at Worton in
1826--the year she first met the Newman brothers. The extracts are taken
from an autobiography of hers, which was originally written in French for
the nuns of the "Order of the Visitation" convent at Autun, Saône et
Loire, to which she went, as professed nun, after her conversion to the
Roman Church.
This is Maria Rosina Giberne's description of Worton (to which I have
access by the kindness of my cousin):--
"It was a delightful place; far from towns and quite country. There I
spent my days as much as possible under the trees, or in the fields
sketching the lovely views. My sister had told me that Mr. Francis Newman
and a friend were coming to the village to spend the vacation. I did not
pay much attention, being preoccupied with this delicious solitude. In a
while the two friends appeared, and I enjoyed hearing them talk, having a
great respect for learned men, although far from being learned myself. I
asked them questions and propounded religious difficulties which troubled
me. I was struck with his (Frank Newman's) piety, which had nothing
affected about it like the manner of some good people. We often talked
whilst I was sketching in the fields, and he explained to me many things
in Holy Scripture that I had not understood. Before leaving the village he
expressed a wish that I could become acquainted with his sisters.... This
idea pleased me much, and on returning home I gave our mother no peace
until she gave me permission to invite two of his sisters to spend a
fortnight with us.
"They accepted the invitation, and Mrs. Newman brought her three
daughters--Harriet, Jemima, and Mary. She left Harriet and Mary with us. I
was much taken at once with Mary, who was nice-looking, unaffected, and
only seventeen years of age. I was resolved to make friends with them,
otherwise should not have been greatly attracted by Harriet who had a way
I could not understand, and who embarrassed me greatly by her knowledge of
religious matters, because I had thought that I might be able to lead
_them_ to the good way, [Footnote: In some notes she expressly says this
was Frank Newman's suggestion primarily.] and behold, they seemed to know
all beforehand, and often showed me that I was mistaken in my
explanations.... I remember the first thing I opposed with all my might
was the idea of a visible Church, and it was not till long afterwards,
when I was staying with their mother in the country, that I took up this
idea. It was, I think, in the winter of 1827 that I embraced this
doctrine.
"Then in the summer the Newman family stayed some months at Brighton.
After John Newman's death the family had no settled home, but moved from
place to place. It happened that one of Maria Rosina's married sisters was
also at Brighton, and consequently it naturally followed that the two
families of Newman and Giberne met often.
"Naturally we called now and then to see Mrs. Newman, who invited us one
day to spend the afternoon and evening, and then, for the first time, I
became acquainted with Mr. Newman, now Father Newman. It was a great
pleasure, for I had heard so much about him, and I enjoyed seeing him
though he spoke very little to me, and paid me no compliments or special
attentions like most young men of our acquaintance, who neglected the
ladies of their families. The delicate and repeated attention of Mr.
Newman to his mother and sisters therefore aroused my admiration and
respect."
[Illustration: SKETCH OF NEWMAN FAMILY BY MARIA ROSINA GIBERNE
BY KIND PERMISSION OF MR. J. R. MOZLEY.
As one faces the picture, John Henry is sitting on Mrs. Newman's right;
Francis William to her left; Harriet to the right of John; Jemima below
her mother.]
To my mind there speaks, in this last sentence, something unusual too as
regards the writer, who, accustomed to the "compliments and special
attentions" which other young men paid her, could yet appreciate and
admire these delicate thoughtfulnesses which _this_ young man, who saw so
much further into the inner heart and meaning of things, loved to show to
his own mother and sisters instead of to other people's sisters, as was
and is the ordinary way of most young men.
In some other MSS. by Maria Rosina, sent me from the Oratory, Birmingham,
[Footnote: By the kindness of Father Bacchus.] there is a rather different
account, in which there is mention of Frank Newman having even then shown
a great tendency to free thought.
She adds: "I had not a suspicion that there was any danger of his getting
to care for me, for, firstly, he was two years younger than I was; and,
secondly, because I myself was occupied almost altogether with the thought
of how to rid myself of the narrow religion which was becoming every day
more unbearable, and also because I had no other thought for him than for
Robert." (Robert Murcott was a young man belonging to a family with whom
her people were intimate, and who had always wished to marry her. He went
out to India, and when he died left her all his money.)
In years to come, a great and lasting friendship began between her and
Cardinal Newman--a friendship which lasted unbroken to the end. When he
went to Rome for the red hat, he was too ill to call and see her at Autun
on his way home, but he had previously been to see her there.
The picture of the Newman family given here was drawn in chalks by her
when she was a girl at a little cottage at Horspath (near Nuneham, in
1829), at which the Newmans were staying. It had been offered them by Mr.
Dornford, Fellow, tutor, and proctor of Oriel, and afterwards rector of
Plymtree.
In the book, to which allusion has before been made, by Rev. Thomas
Mozley, there is a description of Maria Rosina in later life. He says she
was "tall, strong of build, majestic, with aquiline nose, well-formed
mouth, dark penetrating eyes, and a luxuriance of glossy black hair. She
would command attention anywhere.... She was very early the warmest and
most appreciative of Newman's" (John Henry Newman's) "admirers.... Her
great power lay in the portraits she did in chalks.... Besides many
portraits of Newman himself ... she drew a portrait of old Mr.
Wilberforce...."
The portrait of Maria Rosina in this volume was painted by herself in the
spring of 1827, to send to her eldest brother, George Giberne (at Dhoolia,
Candeish), afterwards Judge in the Bombay Presidency (East India Co.). On
the back of it her brother had written in pencil:--
"Yes, here's a silent, thoughtful thing, and yet
Her soft blue eye beams Eloquence: her lips
Oh! who could teach his spirit to forget
Their deep expressiveness, that far eclipse
All that kind nature to this world hath given,
All we can see of Earth, or guess of Heaven."
[Illustration: MARIA ROSINA GIBERNE
FROM A PAINTING BY HERSELF]
At this time she had taken many portraits of her friends, and I have, in
my own possession, one of Miss Wigram, and one, in a riding-hat, of her
sister Emily, both done in chalks, as is her picture of herself sent to
her brother. Later on she went to Rome, where for twenty years she studied
art and copied pictures "for the use," Mr. Mozley says, "of English
chapels." Years after, when my aunt was in the convent of the Order of
Visitation at Autun, she wrote an interesting letter to Cardinal Newman,
which is given by Miss Anne Mozley in her _Letters and Correspondence of
John Henry Newman_ alluding to the old days when their friendship, which
had never wavered during all the years which had gone by, was but just
beginning:--
"I do not want to talk of myself. I want to tell you of my entire sympathy
with you in what you say and feel about the anniversary of dear Mary's"
(the Cardinal's youngest sister) "death." (She died 5th Jan., 1828.) "This
season never comes round without my repassing in my heart of hearts all
the circumstances of those few days--my first visit to your dear
family.... Who could ever have been acquainted with the soul and heart
that lent their expression to that face, and not love her? My sister Fanny
and I arrived at your house on 3rd January, and sweet Mary, who had drawn
figures under my advice when she was staying with us at Wanstead, leant
over me at a table in the drawing-room, and in that sweet voice said, 'I
am so glad you are come; I hope you will help me in my drawing.'"
The next day she was taken ill at dinner, and on the ensuing evening--
dead.
She goes on to say: "Do you recollect that you and I are the only
survivors of that event?"
But to go back to the end of the college life of the subject of this
memoir. In the year 1828, Frank Newman was working amongst the poor at
Littlemore, near Oxford. His brother [Footnote: _Reminiscences of Oriel_,
by Rev. T. Mozley.] at that time was vicar of S. Mary's, the University
Church, and as the hamlet of Littlemore had then no church, [Footnote: A
church was built there later by Newman. In Ingram's _Memorials of Oxford_,
1838, it is said that in former days Littlemore was beautifully wooded,
and that in Saxon times there was a convent (of which there still remain
some ruins) which was called by the Saxon name of the "Mynchery," and
which belonged to the nuns of the Benedictine Order, and the church which
Alfred built on the site of the University Church of to-day, was known as
early as the Conquest as "Our Lady of Littlemore."] he attended to the
spiritual needs of the people there. Indeed, he considered it his duty to
go there every day; and Francis worked also constantly with him in
teaching the villagers. Some little time later, his mother and sisters
came to live at Horspath, in Iffley village, close to Oxford. They, too,
assisted in parochial matters, taught in the schools, visited the sick,
and generally helped the brothers.
By this time John Henry Newman's sermons were attracting great attention
in Oxford, and whenever he preached his University sermons, he had a
crowded congregation of undergraduates. The college authorities, however,
did not approve of his popularity with the undergraduates, and in Canon
Carter's _Life and Letters of Archdeacon Hutchings_, there is a note
showing this:--"I went to Christ Church in 1827.... Newman was at Oriel,
and for the last two years of my time Vicar of S. Mary's. But it was the
object of the college authorities to prevent our going to hear him preach,
and the chapel services were so arranged as to make it impossible."
In 1829 Dr. Pusey was Professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church, and
as he had been for some years the close friend of Frank Newman's brothers,
it was inevitable that the former should see a great deal of him at that
time. He was delighted with Pusey's first books; but it was for the
"pietism and rationalism" which he found in them, more than for any hint
of the spirit of Churchmanship which distinguished his other works so
much. J. H. Newman had been a tutor at Oriel College since 1826. Oriel
College, Rev. Thomas Mozley tells us, was then "held to be in the very
front of academic progress ... with a Provost" (Edward Hawkins) "who owed
his election largely to Newman." Newman, Robert Wilberforce, and Froude
were close friends. Dr. Hawkins had a strong influence over John Newman.
Indeed, he had won love and respect from almost everyone; "he spoke
incisively, and what he said remained in the memory"--so much a part of
his own strong convictions and thought did it seem to be.
Yet Francis Newman was as convincing in his _writings_, at any rate, as
his better-known brother, who, as some thought, "overshadowed" him in the
eyes of the world to a large extent. A friend of mine, writing to me a
short time since, said that a statement had been made recently, by some
one entitled to judge of the matter, that Francis was the "greater of the
two brothers."
Be this as it may, certainly both were pioneers "in a world movement of
reconstruction." Both were prophets in a sense. Both were mental Samsons--
giants among the crowd of those who never see a yard beyond their own
narrow scope of vision. Both were inspired movers of the crusade of
purity, of new and original points of view, and of reformation in the old.
It is true neither could work with the other shoulder to shoulder. _But
they worked._ And it is possible to have a great brotherly affection
notwithstanding strong antagonism of views which render combined work
impossible.
CHAPTER III
HIS MISSIONARY JOURNEY TO THE EAST
In 1826 Francis Newman gained, as it is said, with no special effort, one
of the best Double Firsts in classics and mathematics ever known. He had a
Fellowship in Balliol College, was Emeritus Professor later, and
considered to be one of the most promising, brilliant men at his
University. Many thought his intellect superior to that of his better-
known brother. Many thought also, later on, that, as I have said, all his
life he was more or less overshadowed by the fame of that elder brother.
Francis Newman never took his M.A. degree, and for this reason: he felt he
could not conscientiously sign the Thirty-nine Articles, in which all had
to profess belief. He could not reconcile this signing with his inner
convictions. Rather than do violence to them he preferred being without
the degree. No one could say of him that all his life long he did else
than bear his convictions boldly emblazoned on his shield. There could
never be any doubt of what he thought. He could not beat about the bush in
his beliefs--he would not keep them secret--he did not care for
unpopularity in the least. His great aim was to fight--at whatever odds--
for whatever he felt by dogged conviction. He was often wrong; but never
cowardly, never philandering, never vacillating. "I am anti-everything,"
as he said humorously of himself. And so he was. He _was_, in a sense,
"anti-everything," and though, sometimes through the training of previous
environments, sometimes through other reasons, he was "anti" things that
were right and of good report, he was never against social reform--never
against "the cause that needs assistance"; never against the oppressed
wherever and whenever they crossed his path. Newman thus gave up his
Balliol Fellowship, and with it--more or less--his chances of a brilliant
worldly career.
Briefly stated, these are the chief events of the years that followed the
taking of the Double First at Oxford. In 1827 he met Maria Rosina Giberne,
who was to strongly influence his life for the next six years. In 1828 he
was working with his brother at Littlemore; in 1829, I imagine, he met and
felt strongly in sympathy with some of those with whom, later, the
missionary journey to Syria was planned--Lord Congleton, Mr. Groves, Dr.
Cronin, and others.
People have said that Newman gave up all worldly hopes of fame for the
sake of this missionary venture. It may be that that is true in part. But,
for myself, I cannot help seeing too that there may very well have been
other powerful reasons which also influenced him in the matter. It was
about this time that he asked my aunt, Maria Rosina Giberne, to whom he
was passionately attached, to marry him, and was refused. I think it very
probable that this may have been a strong reason why he wished to break up
the old life and go for change abroad.
Originally there had been some idea that Francis Newman should take Holy
Orders, as well as his brother. This is evidenced by a poem by the latter.
Later, contrary tides swung the former from the mooring of the Anglican
Church. He could not sign her Thirty-nine Articles; he could not agree
with many of her doctrines. He drifted more and more away from her. Then
he fell in with Lord Congleton (then Mr. Parnell) and Mr. A. N. Groves--
both deeply religious men, though neither of them Churchmen.
Lord Congleton [Footnote: _Memoir of Lord Congleton_, by Henry Groves.]
had been given no definite religious training in his youth, though his
mother taught him to say daily prayers. Then, when a young man, he felt a
deep dissatisfaction with this vague religious teaching he had received,
and he began to read more and more in the New Testament, until at length
he became a Christian by sheer conviction. He felt his conversion as a
revelation.
Mr. Groves, who was a well-known dentist in Devonshire, felt about the
same time a great stirring towards missionary work. He offered his
services to the Church Missionary Society. He often stayed in Dublin with
Lord Congleton. In 1828, when they were walking together, one of those
strange mystical approaches of soul to kindred soul took place.
"This, I doubt not, is the mind of God concerning us, that we should come
together not waiting on any pulpit or minister, but trusting that the Lord
would edify us together by ministering as He pleased." Lord Congleton
adds: "At the moment he spoke these words I was assured my soul had got
the right idea, and that moment (I remember it as if it were but
yesterday) was the birth-place of my mind as a 'brother.'"
He mentions here Edward Cronin (who in 1830 formed one of the missionary
party with which Frank Newman was associated), at that time an
Independent, "but his mind was at the same time under a like influence, as
I may say of us all."
[Illustration: PHOTO OF LORD CONGLETON
(LEADER OF SYRIAN MISSIONARY JOURNEY)
FROM HIS "LIFE" BY GROVES]
I should perhaps say here (I have the information from the _Memoir of Lord
Congleton_ before mentioned), that the special truths by which Lord
Congleton, Mr. Groves, and Dr. Cronin were led then, were: "The oneness of
the Church of God, involving a fellowship large enough to embrace all
saints, and narrow enough to exclude the world. The completeness and
sufficiency of the written Word in all matters of faith, and preeminently
in things affecting our Church life and walk--the speedy pre-millennial
advent of the Lord Jesus."
All three of the men just named had made surrender of all that the world
had to offer them, Lord Congleton giving the whole of his fortune to
missionary work. It was he who provided most of the things needed for the
journey.
In 1830 (September) the following party left Dublin:--Lord Congleton (whom
in future it will be simpler to call by his family name of Mr. Parnell, as
Newman thus mentions him in his diary, the _Personal Narrative_, which he
kept throughout this journey to the East); Mr. Cronin; his mother Mrs.
Cronin, and her daughter Nancy Cronin (to whom Lord Congleton was
engaged); and Francis Newman. There was also a Mr. Hamilton, but later on
he found the work not suited to him, and returned to England. [Footnote:
Mr. Groves had already gone as a missionary to Bagdad in 1829, and they
were to join him later.]
Mr. Henry Groves says in the _Memoir_ that the travellers started with an
enormous quantity of luggage. They had practically a small library of
books, a lithographic press in two heavy boxes (for printing tracts,
etc.), and a large medicine chest, which was Mr. Cronin's property (he was
a doctor). When one thinks how the more one travels, even in these
travelling-made-easy days, the more one wishes to abridge one's
requirements and whittle down one's wants, it is not difficult to
understand that in 1830 the difficulties of the rough travelling were
largely increased by these foods for the mind and for the stomach which
travelled in the wake of the little party, nor how they were hampered by
these conditions.
I now quote from Francis Newman's _Personal Narrative_ (published 1856),
which is one of the most interesting of travel books, and very graphically
written in the form of letters to his friends at home. [Footnote: Newman
and Lord Congleton were both at this time about twenty-three years of
age.]
"River Garonne,
At Anchor in Steamboat,
_23rd Sept._, 1830.
"We sailed finely on Saturday from Dublin, while sheltered by the Irish
coast; but in the evening we tasted the Atlantic with a south-wester,
which proved a bitter dose. For nearly fifty hours we tossed, with very
slow progress, until all our bones were bruised, etc., etc.... I have
never seen anything like the sea on the French coast.
"The Bay of Biscay fulfilled all its proverbial roughness: the whole sea
was dells and knolls. It was terrible to see the pilot jump aboard while
his boat was alternately tossed above our deck; he was caught by the
sailors in their arms.... The custom-house officers have detained the ship
so long that we are left here by the tide.... The officers were very
civil. They were all amazed at the number of our packages" (as well they
might be!)... "The prospect of our porterages is frightful. Think of us at
the top of a hotel and an army of porters carrying up the height of three
stories many hundredweights of trunks, chests, hampers, bags, baskets, to
stow into our bedrooms _for the night!_ And this misery is to be repeated
everywhere....
"I talk French clumsily, yet get on somehow.... My French having been
chiefly mathematical, I do not know the names of many common things...."
At Toulouse in October:--"I am already a Frenchman. If you doubt it, learn
that I take wine or raisins for breakfast, and never speak to a peasant
without raising my hat.... This _vin ordinaire_ is not 'bad,' in the sense
of intoxicating, but in another way. However, if it supplies the place of
tea, it is vain to rail at it."
The next entry is while they were staying at Marseilles on 13th October,
and concerns the cheapness of the provisions.
"All provisions appear within reach of the poorest. I have been in some
very low eating-houses here, and perceive apparently poor people breakfast
on meat. Nothing seems dear but milk and butter; we get none but goats'
milk here.... The finest purple grapes are here 1d. or 3/4d. a pound, and
as much bread as I can eat for 1-1/2d.... I had a provoking accident at
Béziers. On our leaving the barge, the carman drove off without securing
our boxes--he was in a violent passion against some girl porters (a
domestic institution of Béziers).... I roared out, 'Arrêtez! Arrière! Vous
n'avez pas attaché la corde!' But in vain; and in an instant down came
from the very top the little medicine chest given me by M----. It fell on
its corner, which saved the glass bottles; but every dovetailing is
broken, the hinges wrenched off, the panels split."
Of course the travelling is chiefly by diligence and canal boat, and for
English ladies very often terribly rough and trying. But Mrs. and Miss
Cronin had resolved to face discomforts, etc., equally with their
companions, and would have no little ameliorations in the way of comforts
for themselves.
One great danger, too, occurred, from which they were only rescued by the
promptitude of Newman and Mr. Parnell (as throughout the diary Newman
alludes to Lord Congleton). Once, in travelling by canal near Marseilles,
Newman found the level of the canal-boat was "dangerously high, from the
arches. Once we had a narrow escape. There was a sudden cry of '_A bas_!'
We turned and saw we were rapidly nearing an arch which would knock off
our heads. The horses kept at a short canter. Old Mrs. C. was sitting
quietly on deck, wholly absorbed, and never dreaming that the sailors
could be calling to her. Miss C. was sitting on a box, fast asleep.
Several of us rushed at once towards them, and pulled them off their seats
on to the deck. Literally they fell upon me in a heap, and we just passed
safe under the arch. Mrs. C.'s bonnet and my hat got smashed."
Here comes a touch of what later on in life was to be the subject of his
keenest thought--the subject of statesmanship, the chief aim of which
should be _the people:_ how to make the land sufficient for the people,
how to make the people sufficient for the land--a counsel of perfection
far removed from the party spirit of politicians, who then, as now, did
not recognize that principles and a sacred sense of responsibility for
their country should be their motive power.
"We are delayed here" (Marseilles) "for a ship. We are likely to go to
Cyprus. The vintage was going while we were _en route_ hither. I was
interested to see men walking bare-legged, stained purple nearly to the
knee, _with treading the wine vat_. I then understood the Scripture
metaphor.... The men seemed to have been wading in blood.... I should
deprecate a whole district being dependent for its livelihood on the sale
of wine.... for as _some_ seasons are sure to be fatal to the crop, the
failure, when it comes, is universal.... To make each component part--I
mean each _local_ part--of society self-supporting, and self-relieving
even in times of calamity, ought, I think, to be the aim of every
statesman."
As regards sight-seeing for sight-seeing's sake, it was _nil_. And for a
reason which seemed not to allow for any of the travellers having
discretion, "We make it a tacit rule never to go ten yards to see
anything; for if once we became sight-seers it is impossible to draw the
line. So in fact I see nothing but what I cannot help seeing."
The next diary-tic letter is not until 14th January of the next year
(1831), when the party had arrived at Aleppo.
Frank Newman had been studying Greek and talking it with a master, and
during the voyage from Marseilles landed for three days at Larnica. On the
ship was an old Greek, and he used to go and talk with him to practise his
Greek.
"You may be amused to hear his judgment of my Greek dialect; he called it
'very beautiful and very funny'; that is, no doubt, because I am apt to
mix up too much of the old Greek, which seems grandiloquent on trifling
subjects....
"Walking in the street at Larnica, I met a person whom I did not know,
who, to my extreme surprise, fell on my neck and kissed both cheeks quite
affectionately, I had not recognized my dirty acquaintance in this clean,
well-dressed gentleman, probably fresh from the bath."
Many were the difficulties Newman and his friends had to encounter in
hiring a vessel to sail to Ladakîa [Footnote: Laodicea of Syria.] on the
opposite coast. At last a bargain was struck with a Turkish ship for five
pounds. But the ship had battled already against the contretemps of too
many voyages. She could no longer beat against the wind as once she used
to do. Four times they set sail, and four times had to put back again into
port. The captain had only an old French map "marked with crosses at
certain places, the cross meaning _porto_, as the captain explained." He
needed help, however, from his passengers to be quite sure which was
which! In this ship they lived with discomfort for a whole month. Still,
all of the friends kept well. The distance from Ladakîa to Aleppo is about
120 English miles. And this journey added to discomfort, hardship, and to
hardship--lack of food for the mission party. It necessitated travelling
three miles into the hills, and when a lofty bleak plain was reached, the
muleteers made it clear that they were to spend the night there.
"We heaped our rudest boxes to make a wall, and on the lee side prepared a
sleeping-place, stretching over it some oilskins.... We had a small supply
of food in baskets.... All night the rain fell in torrents.... Our whole
floor was swamped; we had to sit on carpet bags and let them get wet.
Clothes, bedding, bags, baskets, were drenched, and we had to mount in the
morning in the midst of rain.... The roads were river-beds.... After
riding eleven hours without dismounting (the beasts never leave their
walking pace).... We had fasted the whole day, yet none of us suffered;
not even old Mrs. Cronin, for whom I greatly feared."
I should add here that Francis Newman was strongly in favour of women
riding astride instead of on the Early-Victorian side-saddle, which
necessitates a woman riding in an artificial, twisted position. Still, at
the period at which he is writing, Early-Victorian ideas about the fitness
of things were so much _de rigueur_ that Mrs. Cronin, when forced to ride
astride, was terribly disturbed.
"'Ach, Edward,' said she to her son, 'I expected they would persecute and
murdher us, but I never thought to ride across a mule!'... Three times did
her mule come down with her, poor lady, and all three in dangerous places.
"None of the rest suffered so many falls, nor, I think, any of the laden
beasts. Her son was in terrible distress at every fall, for he was
carrying his infant in his arms ... and he could not put the child down in
the mud without danger to it."
Indeed, it must have been a very distressful journey for all, and not
least for the poor little infant missionary! People may wonder what was
the necessity of taking this last at all. [Footnote: Dr. Cronin and his
wife were both engaged to come out to Mr. Groves. Then she died, and as he
felt bound to fulfil his promise and did not like to leave the baby, he
brought it too.] An old clergyman, however, once said to me, "I would
rather take an infant in arms with me, than go all by myself on a journey
abroad."
At last Aleppo was reached. In his letter, on 10th February to his mother,
Newman says how long their stay there would be is quite uncertain. He "is
taking daily lessons in Arabic, and speaking French."
"I am afraid you will not think the better of me when I tell you that I am
become a smoker; and this though I had so great a dislike to it in
England. I do not mean that I am always smoking--certainly not; but I have
bought two pipes and amber mouthpieces, and all the apparatus; which shows
that I am in earnest. When a man in college smoked cigars in his room, and
we (the Balliol fellows) generally condemned it, I remember, in reply to
my remark that a man who smoked made himself a nuisance, one of them said,
'It would not do to generalize; for in Germany the man who _objects_ to
smoking is the nuisance.' ... If anyone calls on me I must offer him a
pipe and smoke one myself; and, conversely, when I call on anyone, I must
not refuse the pipe.... The pipe fills up gaps of time, and 'breaks the
ice' like an Englishman's remarks on the weather....
"Now I am in for it, I will make you perfect in the theory of smoking. We
have here three sorts of pipes, of which I use but one, viz. the long
straight pipe. It is generally a cherry stick, and reaches from the mouth
to the ground as you sit on a low sofa. The bowl is supported in a tin
frame on the ground to catch the ashes; and you smoke in it _tôotôon_,
which means common dry tobacco.... Ladies, as far as I know, do not smoke
the straight pipe, though I have seen Mussulman females, evidently of
humble rank, with the long pipe and its smoking bowl protruding from under
their long veil as they walked. The second sort is called _Nargîli_ ...
some pronounce it Narjili.... Nargîli means a cocoa-nut, which is used in
this apparatus to hold the water through which the smoke passes.
Vertically out of the cocoa-nut rises a pipe which ends in a long bowl
holding the _Tambac_, which is a second species of tobacco having broadish
yellow leaves worked up with wet. It needs a piece of red-hot coal laid
upon it, and left there, to kindle it. Slanting out of the cocoa-nut
proceeds upwards a second tube, a mere cane, which ends in the smoker's
mouth. He grasps the vertical tube in his left fist, and, if sitting,
rests the cocoa-nut on his knee. This is the way my hostess smokes--an
elegant Levantine lady.... I cannot smoke through water; I find it demands
too much work for my lungs. The third sort is the _Hooka_, a word which, I
believe, means the very long flexible tube which is here substituted for
the cane, while a glass vessel, standing on the ground, does duty for the
cocoa-nut. The principle of the smoking ... are the same as in the
Nargili.... Unless it be overdone, I think the exercise from early youth
must enlarge the capacity and power of the lungs.... When people have not
a second pipe to offer you, they hand the pipe from their own mouth, and
to wipe the mouthpiece before you suck it would be an insult."
Newman says that the Turks are supposed to have a great tenderness for
animals. There is a popular saying, which he quotes, "A Turk cares more
for the life of a cat than of a man." The following curious scene was
witnessed by him in a town on his way to Aleppo:--
"A goat was to be killed, and we had some chance of a bit if one of us
would seize a part of the animal before it was dead. _There_ stood the
victim and its priest.
"In front was a row of cats, sitting up with all the gravity of Egyptian
gods, or like the regiment of cats which were the van of Cambyses against
Egypt. On the other side a regiment of dogs. When the scarlet flood
spouted on to the ground the dogs took their portion of it. I know not
what etiquette or what hint from the sacrificer suddenly dispersed them:
then the cats came in due order and took _their_ portion.... Peace was
wonderfully kept between dogs and cats; but when it came to dividing the
offal, the cats had plenty of screaming, and, I rather think, some
fighting. The number of these wild cats here is a real nuisance."
In May we get another insight into the carrying out of Newman's precept to
himself, always to "live in Rome as the Romans."
"I believe you know it was always our idea that we must put on native
habits wherever we went, so far at least as to encounter no needless
friction. I had not then considered how seriously such change may after a
time affect one's own character, and the thought sometimes crosses the
mind anxiously.
"We smoke. Well. I say to myself, 'I must try not to be wedded to this
practice: I hope to leave it off the moment it proves inexpedient.'.... I
have taken to the Syrian gown and slippers; to walk actively in these is
arduous and, I suppose, very singular. Here is a question: May not my
bodily habit change with it? and may not that affect my mind?... The gown
is ridiculously feminine, beyond what I had been aware; not merely in
length and amplitude, but above the girdle it is puffed out into two
_bosoms_, which are used as pockets" (no doubt the _sinus_ of the Romans).
"... Some things which in company we do as seldom as possible, such as to
blow the nose, or (worse still) to spit, seem to be utterly forbidden
here.... The natives are reserved in the use of a pocket-handkerchief as
the most fastidious English lady.... I believe Xenophon praises the
Persians for never spitting in company." (Would that our own working
classes could, in this respect, be more Persian in their habits!) "Are not
all Eastern manners probably a plant of very ancient growth?" Then, on
religion: "I did not understand till lately how unintelligible to people
here is a religion which is not external and almost obtrusive. We are
certainly thought much better of, because, two of our party having pretty
good voices, we commonly sing praises in daily worship.... To pray
standing, or, as I should rather say, lying flat, at the corners of the
streets is not ostentation here: for so many do it that it has no pre-
eminence.... I always looked to see a missionary church formed in these
countries; but I did not foresee what I now discern, that it would not be
recognized as Christians at all, but be esteemed a mere Anglicism, not by
papists merely, but by Moslems too. I do not know, after all, whether that
could be ever a _permanent_ obstacle. I believe not; for it is not the
name, but the goodness of Christianity that must prevail. However, the now
current idea here is, that the English are very good men, but have _no_
religion--which means, as I said, no exterior; and in so far _our_
exterior inspires something of respect.... I had resolved to read the
Koran through--not in the original, but in a translation--that I might get
some insight into the Mussulman mind.... But I confess to you I have
broken sheer down in the attempt, ... the book makes no impression on my
mind. I cannot find where I left off when I recur to it. That so tedious
and shallow a work can meet such praises gives me a lower and lower idea
of the power of mind in these nations. I now think that the Arabs are
captivated by the tinkle and epigrammatic point of an old and sacred
dialect, while Turks and Persians take its literary beauty as a religious
fact to be believed, not to be felt. How wonderful is the power of
tradition!"
In July, Newman and his party were still at Aleppo. By now they had become
well accustomed to the native foods, but had at last come to the
conclusion that the meat (mutton) was certainly not good; unfortunately it
formed a large proportion of the stews. One dish consisted of rice,
dressed with butter and salt This is called "Piláu" (pronounced "ow"), and
apparently is the same as that common in Russia to-day, which is
_delicious_.
"This piláu is, fundamentally, rice dressed with butter and salt: the rice
is thrown into boiling water, and is boiled for twenty minutes only. This
is the highest luxury of the Bedouins. We saw a company of them dine on
it. They scraped the hot outside of the rice with the tips of their
fingers, squeezed it into a ball in their hand, and shot the ball into
their mouth. The dexterity of this, so as not to burn their fingers, miss
their mouths, nor drop about their garments, is astonishing.... Carrots
with lemon or sour milk make delicious fritters...."
It was during this month that the news came to them from Bagdad that Mr.
Groves (who, it will be remembered, had been there for some time,
expecting them later to join him) had just lost his wife from plague; that
she had been the only one who had caught the disease. Newman himself,
about this time, had a sharp attack of fever. Dr. Cronin was much alarmed
about him; indeed, he believed him to be dying, and leeched his temples
and bled his right arm. Then he tried calomel, and he said that he had
resolved on opening his temporal artery if his pulse had kept as rapid as
at first it was.
[Illustration: DR. CRONIN
ONE OF THOSE WHO WENT TO SYRIA WITH FRANCIS NEWMAN IN 1830
BY KIND PERMISSION OF MRS. CRONIN
PHOTO BY MESSRS. WEBSTER, CLAPHAM COMMON]
In Aleppo, he tells us in one of his letters home, "madmen are looked on
as sacred characters... there are no madhouses in the land.... Certainly
in England the results of turning all the mad loose would be awful.
"But when one sees the entire satisfaction there is here with so ugly and
revolting a state of things, and the inability people have to conceive the
inconvenience of it... I am driven to speculate.... Is insanity
excessively rare here, so that outrages, if they do occur, are naturally
very few? or is the insanity... always of the imbecile kind? Or is
insanity, at its worst, mollified by the respectful treatment which it
meets, as vicious horses by kindness?
"... Here is a people without lunatic asylums. Well, their lunatics are
few or harmless; what a comfortable coincidence! If insanity among _us_ is
caused by strong passions in one class and by intoxication in another,
while the Turkish populations are nearly free from both... it implies a
higher average morality.... Add to this there are no abandoned women
here."
Five months after the first attack of fever Newman was taken ill of a far
worse one, which gave a great shock to his nervous system. He was in real
danger of losing his life this time, possibly because, Dr. Cronin being
absent, there was no one to treat him. He suffered, too, greatly from
continual sleeplessness. When he was recovering, Dr. Cronin, who by now
had returned, ordered horse exercise for him, and Mr. Parnell very
generously bought a horse for him.
In December, 1831, Mr. and Mrs. Parnell [Footnote: Mr. Parnell meant to
have been married to Miss Cronin at Bordeaux, but this was found to be
impossible, so he was obliged to wait till they reached Aleppo, where the
ceremony took place in the early part of the year 1831.] went to Ladakîa
to help Mr. Hamilton, whose health had more or less broken down, secure a
vessel to take him to France _en route_ for England. He determined to see
him safely on board. Mrs. Parnell also insisted on coming with her
husband. But the travelling was rough, and she had had a bad fall from her
ass, and besides had been ill and had no doctor at hand.
Mr. Hamilton went away in the ship, but Mrs. Parnell became more and more
weak, until at last she died. Immediately on hearing of her death. Dr.
Cronin set out, full of sorrow at the loss of his sister, to see if he
could be of any help to Mr. Parnell. Newman writes:--
"The brother and mother here are so deeply afflicted, that I ask: What
does the noble-hearted bridegroom suffer, but so lately a bridegroom?
"I am astounded at the reverse. Two months back she was hanging over my
pillow weeping and kissing me as a dying man; now am I in youthful vigour,
and she is in her grave.
"What a meek and quiet spirit was she, active to laboriousness, though
refined in person. Affectionate she was, very dear to me also, but
unspeakable is the loss to others. This is the third wife taken from those
whom I desired as comrades: one died in Dublin, one in Bagdad, now one in
Ladakîa....
"No _blame_ against Mr. P. ought to be mixed with sympathy for this
melancholy event. His wife's brother, on medical grounds, saw no objection
to the journey.... Few English ladies are in body so well adapted as she
was to bear the inconveniences, the long weariness, or the dangerous
exposures of Turkish travel."
At last the time was come for the journey to Bagdad. Francis Newman and
his friends went with their own horses, and with European saddles and
stirrups.
"The native broad travelling saddle overlaps the animal's sides like a
table, and tilts both ways. To get up at the side without help is a feat
almost impossible. Many a time Mr. Parnell got off to search after some
article of food or convenience for old Mrs. Cronin. To get up again, his
most successful way was to make a run from behind and _divaricate_ on to
the horse's tail, like a boy playing at leap-frog; but the beast was
always frightened, and bolted before he was well on. You will imagine the
rest!... but we were all equally ludicrous, and indeed it is quite a
serious inconvenience."
The next entry mentions the return of Mr. Parnell. He told them that Mr.
Hamilton seemed absolutely unable to learn a foreign language, and this
undermined his spirits and health, and made him a depressing companion.
On 25th April Newman and his friends started from Aleppo. They had not
anticipated such serious difficulties as befell them during this journey.
In the first place, they were not aware of the habits of the camel (at all
events, his habits in the spring of the year). They found to their
consternation that they work from two or three in the morning and travel
till ten. Many people, not natives, had assured them that camels never
travel by night, so they were the more unprepared for this unwelcome fact.
The night travelling might not have mattered for younger people, but on
old Mrs. Cronin the discomfort fell heavily. She had to be "forced out of
her bed at one o'clock in the midst of the sharp cold of the night, and
then have to ride when she ought to sleep. The effect of it on her (for
she did not sleep by day) frightened us so much that at last we bought the
drivers over to our hours.... The caravanserai at Aintab is so
disagreeable a place for Mrs. Cronin that we enquired for a private house,
and... we have hired one at the absurd price of three-halfpence sterling!
It has a large grassy yard, very convenient for our horses, We have now
only four, with the ass...."
However, they were not long at Aintab, for they were summoned before the
Governor and accused of selling four Turkish Testaments. Then, being
unable to deny having done so, the Governor said, "You must leave Aintab
immediately." He provided camels, and they had perforce to go, as they had
been so dictatorially bidden. But this was not all. A mob of fanatics
beset them, followed them out into the country, and then pelted them with
stones--first with small ones, but later with bigger ones, which could
easily have stunned anyone who was hit by them. Presently a man galloped
up and tried to seize Newman's horse's bridle, but he beat him off with an
umbrella. Some of the crowd called out that the Governor had ordered them
to be killed.
By the time Newman returned to his party Mr. Cronin was lying on the
ground, and his mother declared that her son was dying. He had been set
upon by men who had come to attack them, and beaten with fists, clubs, and
stones. They tried their best to kill him. However, to Newman's intense
surprise he was not hurt inwardly, only weak from exhaustion and pain.
This was an almost unhoped-for comfort, and it was even found that he
could continue his journey before evening. By this time the crowd had
entirely dispersed, for an official had been sent by the Governor, and
eventually he was able to quiet the people and send them off. Many of the
travellers' possessions were lost, many stolen, but, at any rate, though
discomforts and dangers undreamt of had been theirs, at least they were
none of them seriously hurt; and that in itself was a thing for which they
felt infinitely thankful. At last the Euphrates was reached.
"We saw it first in splendid contrast to a chalk desert, the most odious
place through which I have travelled. We had soft chalk crumbling under
foot, into which the beasts sank over their fetlocks or deeper.... When we
surmounted the last chalk hills the green valley of the Euphrates burst
upon us.
"It runs in a lowland excavation, bounded by opposite lines of high
hills.... This valley was rich in the extreme, with trees scattered in it
like England; but the sides of the hills were well wooded.... The river is
very turbid, as if with white clay; it is unnaturally sweet, does not
taste gritty, and is painfully cold. We presume this is from the melting
of snow water.... The river is deep, rapid, smooth, and (I judge) as broad
as the Thames at Blackfriars...."
He thus describes the raft they were having made to take them down the
river to Bagdad:--"Rough branches of trees of most irregular shape and
quite small are strung together crosswise by ties of rope, and under them
are fastened a sort of flooring of goat-skins blown up like bladders....
On these is fixed a deck of planks. These rafts carry enormous weights and
draw very little water."
In the _Memoir of Lord Congleton_ the end of this journey is thus told:--
"They reached Bagdad on 27th June, and were met by Mr. Groves, who had for
so many months been anxiously waiting for their arrival, after sufferings
neither few nor light on both sides. It is hard to realize what such a
meeting would be after two such years of toil and suffering as the past
had been."
SECOND PART--BAGDAD
No sooner had the missionary party at length settled down at Bagdad than
more trouble fell upon them. Mrs. Cronin, who had suffered almost more
from the troubles, discomforts, and dangers of the journey than perhaps
her friends guessed, grew worse and worse. She told Mr. Groves "that she
was come hither to die," and it proved to be true; for only a few days
after her arrival she died, to the deep distress of her son. So already,
besides the unceasing discomforts, dangers, and disasters which had
befallen the missionaries, there had been the cost of these three lives--
Lord Congleton's wife, Mrs. Groves, and now old Mrs. Cronin, worn out by
the terrible weariness of their journeyings under such rough conditions.
There is one thing which has struck me very forcibly as regards Frank
Newman's _Personal Narrative_, and it is this: Throughout the whole book
there is no mention of actual missionary work--the aim and object of this
journey into Syria. There are, it is true, allusions to their own private
prayer-meetings (of course they were hardly what one generally understands
by the word "private," but still they could not be termed public) and to
the distribution of New Testaments, but no actual _teaching_ is mentioned.
Nor does Newman write his own views on the subject. The diary-letters are
chiefly filled with descriptions of the "perils of the way"--it is more or
less secular. To me this has always seemed strange, for there was no doubt
that he was, with the others, filled with a very real religious Christian
zeal _then_, although later his views unhappily underwent great change and
alteration, until a few years before his death, when his earlier faith was
restored. But this fact remains: but for one's own previous knowledge of
the aim of this journey, one would hardly recognize the _Narrative_ as a
missionary's diary at all.
In the _Memoir of Lord Congleton_ there is far more missionary spirit; but
still, even there, there is but very little detailed information as to
mission work. During their stay at Bagdad Lord Congleton and Mr. Groves
did indeed "develop plans for missionary work" which it was hoped would
soon prove successful. The former bought a large house in the midst of the
city for mission purposes. At first they thought of working among the
"Armenian and Roman Catholic Christian population," and also "among the
Jews," but they found the Mohammedans in Bagdad "peculiarly bigoted." And
they owned to themselves later that "Bagdad had proved a failure in a
missionary point of view." Mr. Groves, who wrote the _Memoir of Lord
Congleton_, indeed owns that, "To many who look at life superficially,
these years may seem lost; but He who often leads us 'about' (Deut. xxxii.
10) ... has purposes of which neither the one led, and still less the
lookers-on, have any conception.... Thus to some these years of toil and
sorrow _will_ appear a mistake."
It is impossible to doubt the earnest faith and missionary zeal of these
few who had come out to "do the Lord's work" in the East. But to many
Churchmen it will be difficult to reconcile the words of Mr. Groves, that
"the Coming of Christ, the powers of the Holy Ghost, were truths being
brought before the _Church of God_" when it is remembered that they had
practically severed themselves from the _visible_ body of Christ's Church
on earth, and were themselves (without Divine authority as delivered once
to the Apostles) celebrating each Sunday in their house the Lord's Supper.
Constant mention is made in the _Memoir_ of the open persecution which the
mission party suffered in Bagdad, and of "the impossibility of access to
the people." There were a few converts to Christianity made, but only a
few; and the disappointments were many and grievous.
Then, too, their party was lessened by the departure of Frank Newman and
Mr. Kitto for England. No reason is to be traced for this decision of
Newman's, and it is not easy to understand what it could have been. It
happened during the spring months of the year 1833, and shortly after his
second proposal to Maria Rosina Giberne and her second refusal. He had
written begging her come out to Bagdad, marry him, and work with them
there. No doubt her refusal was a bitter disappointment to him, and
possibly he wished to go back to England (he said in his diary he did not
know how long he might stay there), and try if he could not persuade her
personally. But if he thought this, he was again disappointed, for his
meeting with her (as I see from some papers written by my aunt and kindly
supplied me from the Oratory, Birmingham), was of no more avail than
before. She mentions having met him shortly after his return, and it is
evident that it was a meeting not devoid of awkwardness on her part and
disappointment on his.
To go back to the letters from Bagdad, after this digression, Newman gives
a very graphic account of the rafts used for travelling on the river from
Moosul.
[Illustrations: PERSIAN LADY AND PERSIAN SMOKING
DATE, 1827
FROM PERSIA IN "MODERN TRAVELLER" SERIES
BY JOSIAH CONDER (pub. 1830)]
"The rafts used for descending the river consist of a rude deck fastened
to a flooring of blown-up goatskins.... They are used for swimming
bladders as in the ancient world. They serve for barrels to carry
water.... The skins are also used in the bazaars ... for butter, treacle,
honey, etc.... The raft is not rowed, except barely to keep it in the
stream. It keeps twisting round and round, like a stone in the air;... but
... you have all the freshness and life of a vast streaming river and all
the tranquillity of a mere pond.... One day, a man who wished to go down
the river on our raft swam to us on a goatskin.... As a Thames wherry to a
Thames steamer, so is a goatskin to a raft.... It has no prow nor
stern.... If driven ashore it may burst many of the skins, some of which
indeed from time to time need to be blown and tied afresh.... The oars are
enormous, as in English barges. In our small raft two men at a time
rowed.... I cannot tell you now of Mr. Groves's plans. I have a great deal
to learn. The political state of this city, from within and without, is
the very reverse of satisfactory." Then there follows a sentence which
seems to imply that Mr. Groves was expecting too much from his "_monthly_
visits" to the Arabs in the way of moral results. Also there follows a
delightful account of the native doctor's methods of dealing with his
patients. He "contracts to _cure_ the patient ... for a definite sum,
which is paid to him at once. If the patient thinks the price too high,
the doctor lets him get worse; and when he applies anew, of course raises
his demand. Nothing can be recovered if not paid down. Mr. Cronin" (the
doctor travelling with them), "with all his practice at Aleppo, got fees
only once or twice the whole time. He and Groves both despair of it here."
English patients when they use to their doctor the familiar phrase, "I put
myself entirely in your hands," little think how completely and
practically this was understood by these Bagdad doctors, who considered
that a dollar in the hand is worth two promised _after_ treatment of a
case, and who, when they once had patients "in their hands," held them
tight!
It is clear, I think, from the following entry that Newman did not approve
thoroughly of Mr. Groves's methods of learning Arabic, any more than he
seems to do of his "monthly visits" to the Arabs. He says that a friend of
theirs, who had recently joined them, had studied Arabic and Persian
twenty-eight years, and is an accomplished Orientalist, yet he "ridicules
English notions of learning." Our religion, poetry, philosophy, science,
are so opposed to everything here "that, he says, nothing but long time in
the country can make an Englishman intelligible on religious subjects." To
confirm this theory that a perfect knowledge of the language of the people
to be taught is an absolute essential in a missionary--it is known, for an
absolute fact, that missionaries have been eight years in India preaching
until even they became convinced that sometimes they gave a totally wrong
impression of what they were trying to teach to the natives, and therefore
gave up all further efforts at teaching until they had learnt the language
more _thoroughly_, and had it at their finger's--or, to speak more
correctly, tongue's--end.
Eventually Mr. Groves came to the conclusion that for a long time to come
"the wisest method" was to "avoid controversy with the Moslems." He formed
schools not on the ground of "attending to the rising generation," but to
aid him in the language ... give him opportunities of "trying his wings
(as he calls it) against Christian errors, and exciting the attention of
Moslems. Indeed, several (chiefly Persians) have come privately and begged
New Testaments to send to their friends in Persia. At present I conceive
he has nearly the whole Christian population here in his hands." And
later, "Groves has not at all disappointed me, do not think that from
anything I have written. He is what I expected from his book, and a great
deal more. He has a practical organizing directing energy which fits him
to be the centre of many persons, especially since it is combined with
entire unselfishness and a total absence of personal ambition or _desire_
to take the lead which he does take. He is very sanguine.... I am apt to
be sadly faithless, and to see nothing but difficulties."
Perhaps his lack of conviction that this effort at missionary work _could_
make its way in spite of so many great difficulties, as well as his own
bad health (he states that he had not had a single day of real health
since they have been at Bagdad), had something to do with his decision to
return to England.
In August, 1832, Newman had a big class of boys every afternoon to whom he
taught English and Geography; he mentions that "into the latter" he puts
"a vast miscellany, physical, political, historical," from his knowledge
and power of talk.
On 18th Sept., 1833, he left Bagdad. There is no entry in his diary
between this and the last one in August, 1832, four months earlier. No
word of his parting with his friends; no word of his reluctance to give up
his missionary work.
But there is, I think, a good deal more in these words written on 18th
September than meets the eye:--
"I am on my way to England for reasons partly personal" (I think this
hints at a hope not altogether dead, which had been his close companion
through his two years of absence), "partly connected with the interests of
my Bagdad friends, _and my imagination is in England_."
In his journey through Teheraun and thence to Tabreez, he passed through
the celebrated rock of Besittoun. The sculptures there are said to
represent the conquest of Darius Hystaspis.
"Our caravan did not go close enough to see the sculptures; we were
probably half a mile off, but the muleteers were careful to point to them
and talk of them. So too in going from Babylonia into Media by the ancient
pass of Zagros, they were eager to draw my attention to the sculptures in
lofty, apparently inaccessible rocks. 'Your uncle made those,' said a
muleteer. At first I did not understand, but I found he meant by my uncle
some infidel. No true believer, he said, could have done it.... The pass
must be very ancient, and it is by far the noblest work I have seen in
Asia."
The next letter is from Constantinople, 9th April, 1833.
"I am on my way to England, but do not know how long I may stay there." In
his journey from Erzeroom to Scutari, he says he "became a mere animal";
he could only think of his horse's feet and his horse's footing. He never
felt secure, for this reason: that the Tartar's horse, behind whom he
rode, in the "ladder road" [Footnote: A "ladder road" is made by the
horses all following each other in one track, and each trying to step in
the steps made by the first horse.] beside the precipices, through the
snow, "fell eleven times with him," and more than once fell over him.
Frank Newman says his fear of falling prevented him from being able to
admire the scenery, when, as often, it was grand and striking. "The Tartar
starts at a fast walk, gets gradually into a shuffle, and studies the pace
and power of all the beasts; at last he takes a sharp trot, but slackens
before any of them lose breath. His great problem is, that the _weakest_
horse of the set (who really sets the pace) shall come in well at last....
I never imagined I could have gained a power of sleeping for an hour, or
two hours, and at last even for ten minutes ... in our last week, in which
I had no regular night sleep. He" (the Tartar) "could not sleep, for he
had two horses carrying gold ... but he dozed famously while on horseback.
Dr. Kidd used to tell us that the wrist, the eyelid, and the nape of the
neck went to sleep before the brain--a charitable excuse for one who drops
a Prayer Book in church from drowsiness. I wish I could get Dr. Kidd to
tell me whether the knee does not (at least by habit) remain awake after
the brain is asleep, for I never saw the Tartar loose in the saddle even
when he was all nidnodding." Then comes again the suggestion of the doubt
which beset Newman that the way in which his mission party at Bagdad, and
some Church Missionary workers at Constantinople laboured, was not a way
which could long endure. That difficulties in the future inevitably must
come as lions in the path. "Constantinople itself looks to me like mere
card-houses--bright blue and bright red; and they are not much better. By
being perched up so steep, they force themselves on the eye.... Perhaps I
am out of humour: Constantinople is so dreadfully dear to one who comes
from Asia (I pay ten piastres, or half-a-crown, for my mere bed--full
London price). It is also very chilly and raw.... Yet I do enjoy the bed
_with sheets_, it is an inexpressible luxury. How I have longed for it,
but in vain, when suffering fever, to be able really to undress! But I
must not write of such matters, nor of more serious ones that distract my
judgment and distress me.
"I have seen the American Missionaries here. He" (Mr. Goodall) "gives
himself entirely to promote the _self-reform_ of the Armenian Church. This
fundamentally agrees with what Mr. Hartley, of the Church Missionary
Society, told me was the Society's proceeding against the Greek Church....
It also agrees with Groves's plan at Bagdad. I cannot censure it: I must
approve it: yet I have a painful belief that it cannot long go on in the
friendly way they all design.... This zeal of the Americans for Turkish
Christianity is a new and striking phenomenon."
The last entry in the _Personal Narrative_ occurs on 14th April, 1833,
before Newman had left Constantinople. Very shortly after he departed, and
not very long after, all his connection with this two years and a half
missionary journey was a thing of the past.
It had been more or less a failure as far as regards outward consequences.
Of that there seems no doubt. But there is also no doubt that it made its
mark in spiritual matters in the minds of many. No doubt that it altered
for some their spiritual landmarks and rubicons. No doubt that the subject
of this memoir came home seeing religion from a different standpoint.
Archdeacon Wilberforce reminds us in one of his sermons, preached at
Westminster Abbey, that the astronomers who built the pyramids of the Nile
pierced a slanting shaft through the larger pyramid, which pointed direct
to the pole-star. Then, if you "gazed heavenward through the shaft into
the Eastern night, the pole-star alone would have met your gaze. It was in
the ages of the past; it was when the Southern Cross was visible from the
British Isles. Slowly, imperceptibly, the orientation of the planet has
changed. Did you now look up into the midnight sky through the shaft in
the Great Pyramid, you would not see the pole-star. New, brilliant space-
worlds would shine down on you. But the heavens have not altered, and the
shaft of the pyramid is not lying, or unorthodox. A new view of the
heavens has quietly come, for the earth's axis has changed its place."
Very slowly too, sometimes, the axis of a personality changes its place.
It may be that an entirely new point of view faces it. Some other view of
life "swims into its ken." The mental eye can no longer see through the
old means which served it in years gone by for lens. It is, as it were,
looking at a new place in life's sky: for a time it is quite unable to
reconcile its old ideas of religious astronomy with the new ones. What
then? The sky is the same; but there are many ways of looking at it; and
many spiritual atmospheres which cloud the outlook. Frank Newman could not
reconcile at this time, nor in those which were coming, his old
Calvinistic tendency of thought with new ideas which were forcing
themselves in upon him. At the very end of life he saw the star of
Christianity again, but this missionary journey which had just, for him,
terminated, seemed to be more or less the rubicon which divided him from
his old faith, and from the rationalism to which he drifted during the
years while he was at Manchester, and University College, London.
CHAPTER IV
HIS MARRIAGE: HIS MOTHER'S DEATH:
HIS CLASSICAL TUTORSHIP AT BRISTOL IN 1834
In Francis Newman's diary is this entry:--"On June 27th, my birthday, I
first saw Maria Kennaway at Escot." [Footnote: Escot, Ottery St. Mary, S.
Devon, now in the possession of the present Sir John Kennaway, M.P.]
Evidently the attraction between them was mutual, for the engagement
followed quickly, and they were married the same year.
Maria Kennaway was the daughter of the first Sir John Kennaway, who was
born at Exeter in 1758. In 1772 he sailed to India with his brother, the
late Richard Kennaway. In 1780 he received his captain's commission, and
in 1786 Marquis Cornwallis made him one of his aides-de-camp. I quote from
_New Monthly Magazine_ for 1836, which gave an account of some incidents
in the first Sir John Kennaway's life at the time of his death. [Footnote:
I am indebted for this account to the courtesy of the present Sir John
Kennaway.]
[Illustration: MARIA KENNAWAY
FRANCIS NEWMAN'S FIRST WIFE
From a miniature
PHOTO BY MESSRS. WEBSTER, CLAPHAM COMMON
BY KIND PERMISSION OF SIR JOHN KENNAWAY]
"In 1788 Lord Cornwallis sent him as envoy to the Court of Hyderabad to
demand from the Nizam the cession of ... Guntoor. In this mission he was
eminently successful, not only obtaining that which he came to demand, but
inducing the Nizam to enter into a treaty of offensive and defensive
alliance against Tippoo Sultan. For this service His Majesty was pleased
to create him a baronet (1791), and he received a mark of still further
approbation from the Court of Directors (East India Company) in a vote
which they passed to take out the patent of creation at the Company's
expense." Later, Sir John arranged a definite peace between the Nizam's
Commissioner and the Mahrattas with those of Tippoo Sultan. From this time
forward Sir John remained as Resident at the Court of the Nizam. But as
his health had suffered greatly from the Indian climate, he came back to
England in 1794, and the East India Company voted him "the unusual grant
of a pension of £500 per annum" on his retirement from official duties.
Soon after his return to England he met and married Charlotte Amyatt, and
went to live at Escot, Ottery St. Mary. Here their family of twelve
children was reared. Sir John, though his official life was over, yet
busied himself in many local matters. He acted as deputy-lieutenant and as
colonel-commandant of local militia and yeomanry. Then later, in advanced
age, there fell upon him a great trouble: he lost his sight entirely.
Curiously enough, his brother (who had served in the Civil Service of the
East India Company) suffered the same deprivation.
Everyone who remembers her describes Maria Kennaway, Sir John's daughter,
as possessing great beauty and attraction. She had hitherto spent her
girlhood in the daily service of the poor around her home. She and her
sisters started village schools in the neighbourhood, and taught the
children constantly the religious duties in which they themselves had
grown up.
Maria Kennaway--a Plymouth Sister as regards her religious profession--was
a girl of deep and earnest faith. After her marriage to Francis Newman, it
became a real grief to her to find that he was drifting further and
further away towards agnosticism. Loving him devotedly as she did, her
constant prayer was that he might return to his former faith: that the
"cloud," as she called it, which was over him might be dispersed, and that
he should believe as she did.
Like Moses, she never in this life saw her "Promised Land" (she never
doubted that he would _die_ in faith), for when she died in July, 1876
(devotedly nursed by her husband), she knew that _he_ thought, as he bent
over her at the end, that it was probably a _last_ farewell for both.
I give here, as it seems an appropriate place, Newman's letter (to Dr.
Nicholson) on his wife's death:--
"15 Arundel Crescent,
"Weston-super-Mare,
"_21st July_, 1876.
"My dear Nicholson,
"For more than forty years I have been in possession of a heart that loved
me ardently: that happiness is no more. But I kept my treasure ten years
longer than I had any reason to expect. Yesterday we committed my beloved
to the grave....
"I saw her declining in strength through failure of appetite, but ever
hoped for finer weather and change of air to restore her. But the fine
weather came too late to restore her. From want of blood her heart became
fatally weak, and she died just as her brother did, the late Sir John
Kennaway, through failure of the heart and consequent mortification of the
feet. I now believe that local death began on the night of the 5th. Her
sufferings in the feet were great, and we could do nothing to allay them.
Her breathlessness (also from weakness of the heart) we could aid by
fanning. She knew she could not recover, and only prayed for 'release.'
Her prayer was granted early on Sunday morning, 16th July.
"Of course I feel very desolate, and to live quite alone in declining
years [Footnote: Some few years later he married his first wife's devoted
friend and companion who had lived with them for eleven years, and who
took the greatest care of Newman till he died in 1897.] seems unnatural
and unhealthful; but I cannot form any decisions at present. I am
conscious of excellent health and unbroken strength, and after forty years
of happy love should be very ungrateful to repine.
"By God's help I mean to be cheerful and active....
"I am, your affectionate friend,
"F. W. Newman."
This is the epitaph Newman had placed over his wife's grave:--
"With no superiority of intellect, yet by the force of love, by sweet
piety, by tender compassion, by coming down to the lowly, by unselfishness
and simplicity of life, by a constant sense of God's Presence, by devout
exercises, private and social, she achieved much of Christian saintliness
and much of human happiness.
"She has left a large void in her husband's heart.
"Obiit, _16th July_, 1876."
Newman always spoke of his wife as "the most affectionate and tender-
hearted of mortals." There was always a very great affection between them.
His letters all show this. Their married life was a long intercourse of
happiness, _un_-"chequered by disputes." [Footnote: "Marriage is one long
conversation, chequered by disputes."--R. L. Stevenson.] Still, there was
not (as is shown, I think, in many ways) strong community of interests.
For in all Newman's laborious philological studies--his learned lectures,
articles, and researches, scriptural and literary, his speculations in the
realms of deep thought--she was to all intents and purposes practically
outside his mental door. She was never greatly inclined to join in the
society of his learned friends; but this was more from a sense of modesty,
because she was afraid of not being in sympathy with them; because she
thought that she was not clever enough.
She had the greatest admiration for her husband. It is easy, of course, to
understand that when Frank Newman came back from his missionary journey he
was just the sort of young man who would take a girl's fancy. It was a
thing not to be surprised at that she fell in love with him. She was
keenly interested in home missionary work among the poor villagers of her
own home. She knew that he had come through great dangers in his journey
to the Holy Land as a missionary. He had not then definitely cast aside
his old beliefs--that was to come later; _now_ he was on the brink of it,
and he was alone on this inward, personal brink. _She_ would not yet be
aware of it. Very probably he seemed a hero in her eyes, because of all
the dangers he had braved to preach the Gospel, and because he was one of
the most intellectual men of his day: had taken high honours at Oxford,
and had given them up for the sake of what he believed to be right.
In the beautiful little Devonshire town of Ottery St. Mary, very possibly
he was the greatest man who had come across her life's path. He very
evidently cared for her; the inevitable next thing seemed to be to care
for him. At that time his name was in everybody's mouth. Miss Frere wrote,
in 1833, that "the brother of Mr. Newman (John Henry Newman) is a young
man of great promise, who has left the fairest prospect of advancement in
England to go as a missionary to Persia."
At any rate, Destiny had brought them together, and they were married.
As a woman said once to me, "There is no choosing in love"--once the
_meeting_ has happened, all free choice is at an end.
Mrs. Francis Newman was not very strong, and later in life developed
greater delicacy. It will be remembered that Newman's mother and sisters
were living at Oxford at this time, and he was anxious some time later to
bring his bride to see them. Unfortunately she fell ill, and the treatment
given for her illness proved quite a mistaken one; consequently her
recovery was much slower than it need otherwise have been. The journey
was, besides, a tiring one for her in her state of health. They had to go
from Bristol to Oxford, for by this time Newman was settled at Bristol
College as classical tutor. He had previously been tutor in Dublin for a
short time.
In 1836 Francis Newman went through the ceremony of Baptism at a chapel in
Bristol. I say advisedly, "went through the ceremony," for I believe both
he and his brother had received the rite in early childhood, when their
father was alive.
Mr. George Hare Leonard, University College, Bristol, has kindly sent me
some information as regards Francis Newman's work at Bristol, as also has
Mr. Norris Mathews, the City Librarian of the Municipal Public Libraries
there.
From them I learn that the college at which Newman was classical tutor
was, not "Queen's," as has once or twice been asserted, but Bristol
College. It was founded in 1831, and only existed ten years. Mr. Hare
Leonard tells me that it was held in a large house in Park Row, and that
it had some very distinguished pupils, Sir Edward Fry, the late Sir George
Gabriel Stokes, [Footnote: Sir George Gabriel Stokes, Lucasian Professor
of Mathematics at Cambridge since 1849, and Fellow and President of
Pembroke College, Cambridge, was born in 1819; senior wrangler, 1841.
President of Royal Society 1885. Contributed many mathematical papers and
lectures to the Royal Society and other societies at Cambridge University,
Aberdeen, Edinburgh, etc.] and Walter Bagehot being amongst them.
At this time Newman was a member of the historic Baptist chapel at
Broadmead. I think it must have been in this chapel, indeed, that he was
re-baptized (as I mentioned a little earlier), and some of the
congregation anticipated his becoming one of the sect of Plymouth
Brethren.
Perhaps it is not generally known that Bristol College undertook to give
religious instruction on Church of England lines to those boys whose
parents wished it (I quote now from Mr. George Hare Leonard's letter to
me): "This was not obligatory upon all, and there was a fierce attack on
the college by certain of the clergy, and Bishop Gray was hostile. In
1841, under the influence of Monk (Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol),
Bishop's College was founded close by, and the older and more liberal
college was unable to stand the competition, and came to an end."
I quote here [Footnote: By the kindness of Miss Humphrey, Lensfield,
Cambridge, who gave me this extract from a memoir of her father.] an
account of the school life of the Vicar of St. Mary Redclyffe, Bristol:--
"In 1835 he went to Bristol College, a school that no longer exists, of
which Dr. Jerrard, his brother William's friend and a mathematician of
some note, was principal.... He remained for two years at Bristol College,
and considered that when there he owed much to the teaching of Francis
Newman, brother of the Cardinal, a man of charming character and great
attainments (afterwards made manifest in many ways), who was then lecturer
in elementary mathematics, and subsequently corresponded with him" (the
Vicar of St. Mary Redclyffe) "on mathematical subjects when both had
become famous."
This all seems to point, I think, to the fact that Bristol College had
certainly a distinguished roll of names in its short ten years' record.
1836 was the year of Mrs. Newman's death--Francis Newman's mother. His
wife was so alarmingly ill that he was not able to be present at his
mother's funeral; and so the last time he saw her alive was on the
occasion when he brought his bride to introduce to her at Oxford.
Miss Mozley says of his mother: "She was a woman content to live, as it
were, in the retirement of her thoughts. She had an influence, though not
a conspicuous one, on all about her. The trials of life had given a weight
to her judgment, and her remarkable composure and serenity of temper and
manner had its peculiar power. Under this gentle manner was a strong will
which could not be moved when her sense of duty dictated self-sacrifice."
A month after her death Cardinal Newman had written: [Footnote: _Letters
of John Henry Newman_, Anne Mozley.] "Of late years my mother has much
misunderstood my religious views, and considered she differed from me;
[Footnote: As of course she did.] and she thought I was surrounded by
admirers, and had everything my own way; and in consequence I, who am
conscious to myself I never thought anything more precious than her
sympathy and praise, had none of it." He goes on to say: "I think God
intends me to be lonely.... I think I am very cold and reserved to people,
but I cannot ever realize to myself that any one loves me."
Those who have read Miss Mozley's _Life of John Henry Newman_ will
remember how passionately devoted to her two sons Mrs. Newman was. Once or
twice she said that though "Frank was adamant" when she had wished to get
closer in touch with his interests and sympathies when he was quite a
young man, yet she was always _quite_ in sympathy with her eldest son.
Probably as time went on and she saw the latter drifting ever further and
further into religious views with which she had never been conversant,
insensibly to herself, her manner changed when he spoke to her of how
gradually the whole scope of his religion was widening and developing in a
direction in which she felt it impossible for herself to follow him.
One wonders if she had had any knowledge of the growing agnosticism of her
other son, but probably this was unlikely.
[Illustration: DR. MARTINEAU
FROM THE PAINTING BY A. E. ELMSLIE]
CHAPTER V
FRIENDSHIP WITH DR. MARTINEAU
In the year 1840 Francis Newman was made Classical Professor in Manchester
New College. That same year saw Dr. Martineau appointed Professor of
Mental and Moral Philosophy at the same college. It will be remembered
that for thirty-seven years Manchester New College had been at York, and
had now but just returned to its name-place.
Here then began the friendship which lasted unbroken until death.
Both men were keen searchers--each in his own way--after religious truth.
For both it was a subject that practically affected their whole lives. But
while in Martineau the result was a deep theology which found its
satisfaction in the fold of Unitarianism, in Newman dogma of any sort was
practically an unknown quantity. He drifted further and further from
revealed religion, until many of his letters and writings became to the
Christian minds of some who read them exceedingly painful. It is true that
before he died Mr. Temperley Grey, the minister who attended him in his
last illness, declared that there was a return to his original faith, but
still nothing can alter the effect of the written word, and there is a
passage in one of Newman's own letters which illustrates this fact very
clearly. "It is a sad thing to have printed erroneous fact. I have three
or four times contradicted and renounced a passage ... _but I cannot reach
those whom I have misled_." In those last nine words there is a world of
unexpressed regret--regret which no after endeavour can eradicate. Both
spoken and written words go to far mental ports, and very often-from being
out of our ken--unreachable ones for us. No later contradiction can reach
them and undo the once-made impression.
Martineau and Newman were not of one mind in the matter of religion. The
letters which passed between them show that; but they show, too, that no
dispute separated them. If for a time some painful passage in a letter of
Newman's troubled his friend, the matter was dealt with with
straightforward candour and unfailing forbearance and gentleness. There
were no harsh words between them. Both of them were naturally, innately
sweet and kindly in disposition. Even in matters of dispute which
concerned that subject which occupied so large a part in both their minds,
difference of opinion could not "separate very friends."
It will be remembered that the year before the regular correspondence
between the two began, Martineau had written a paper criticizing Newman's
_Phases of Faith_.
Before giving Newman's letters, perhaps a few words on Martineau himself
would not be out of place here. He came of an old Huguenot family. Mr.
Jackson, from whose biography of him I am quoting, says that Gaston
Martineau, who, tradition tells us, was a surgeon of Dieppe, came to
England after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and that
though first he went to London to live, yet that eventually he settled
down at Norwich, and here all his children were born. The youngest of them
became the father of James Martineau, the theologian. He was born in the
same year as Francis Newman, and died just seven years before he did.
In the bringing up and early training of both men there was a large
element of Puritanism. Many of the most severe Calvinistic doctrines held
sway in Newman's home life, and even if the atmosphere was a little less
thickly charged with religious thunderclouds in the early environment of
Martineau, yet certainly, from all accounts, Sunday was pre-eminently a
day that "hid its real meaning and brightness behind a frowning face." I
cannot help quoting here a story which a little reveals the sort of
religious atmosphere which brooded over the day and the point of view
brought to bear on it by James Martineau's mother when he was a boy. The
mother had gone to church one Sunday evening, and left word in her little
home circle that they were to read the Bible.
When she came back she put the probing question to James: "What had he
read?" His answer was: "Isaiah." She at once replied that he couldn't have
read the whole; and he answered promptly, "Yes, mother, I have, skipping
the nonsense."
From eight years old to fourteen James Martineau went, as a day scholar,
to Norwich Grammar School. After school life he came to the conclusion
that he wished to give his life to the ministry, and as, of course, the
English universities were not open to anyone who refused to sign the
Thirty-nine Articles, he was sent to Manchester College. Here it became
evident to everybody that he was a student who would let nothing interfere
with his work. His masters were struck by his accurate habits of mind and
great perseverance in research.
In 1835 his ministry in Liverpool, as pastor in Paradise Street Chapel,
began, and to his work here was joined his work at Manchester New College,
which, as I mentioned before, began in 1840, the same year as Newman's own
connection with the college. But when, in 1853, the college was
transplanted to London, for four years Martineau continued to live as a
minister in Liverpool, and yet he kept up his classes at the college (six
hours by train from Liverpool).
In 1857 he was asked to come and live in town and devote his whole time to
his college work, and this he agreed to do. There were not then many
students, but among them were names which after years were destined to
make famous, and among these were Alexander Gordon, Estlin Carpenter, and
Philip Wicksteed.
In 1858 he was appointed minister to Little Portland Street Chapel.
Formerly the congregation belonging to the chapel were rigid, unbending
Unitarians. With the advent of Martineau began the newer, broader views of
Unitarianism. Throughout the years which now were to be passed in London,
Dr. Martineau's labours were unceasing as scholar, thinker, and
theologian. It is said that, though he wrote and taught so much, yet he
never let his reading be interfered with; he was always adding to his
stores of knowledge. For fifty years he was recognized as one of the most
profound thinkers of his day, as well as one of the finest writers.
The first letter from Francis Newman to Martineau, from which I quote, is
dated December, 1850, from Brighton:--
_Dr. Martineau from Newman._
"I seem to be out of joint with you in the two highest interests of man--
Religion and Politics ... I am ... become a Republican by principle, for
the continent Jefferson always held that constitutional monarchy was a
simple impossibility in a large continental country where great armies
were kept up; and I think the history of a millennium in Europe
demonstrates it. All royalties were in their origin constitutional; but in
the long run no dynasty ever resisted the temptation to overthrow the
barriers which fenced it in. _Our_ liberties seem to me rightly ascribed
to the fact that we are insular, and need only a _navy_ for protection.
Sweden for the same reason is able to retain its liberties.... I think
that in the order of Providence, royal power has served the purpose of
uniting nations in larger masses than would else have held together.
"Where it has done this without destroying municipal organization it is
clearly good in its result--as in Great Britain, Sweden, Germany; ... but
having served this function, it seems to me that Royalty (unless it could
again become elective) has done its work, and ought not to be
regretted.... On doctrinaire grounds, either to unsettle it where it works
well, or to desire to enforce it where it has violated its pledges and
forfeited all claims to love and devotion, seems to me a mistake similar
in kind.
* * * * *
"Must not a time of weakness come when Austria is bankrupt--when an
Emperor of Russia is a dotard or a child, when provinces of Russia become
disaffected, or an army mutinies; or again, when France and Austria
seriously fall out?... You see I am dosing you with some of my most
pungent stuff, in proof that I trust your strength of stomach ...
"Your affectionate friend,
"FRANCIS W. NEWMAN."
In the letter which follows, Newman touches on two well-known
personalities of his day--Frederica Bremer and Charles Kingsley. He
mentions the fact of his having been engaged to meet Kossuth as the reason
why the first attempt to meet Miss Bremer was unsuccessful. It will be
remembered that Miss Bremer came to England in order to collect material
for her _Life in the Old World_. (This year was also the date of Kossuth's
first visit to our shores.) Miss Bremer was Swedish by descent, but
Finnish by birth, for she was born in Finland in the year 1801.
As regards Kingsley, in 1850 he had published tracts on "Christian
Socialism." _Alton Locke_ had already come out and met with scorn on the
part of the Press, though working men--who recognized Kingsley as their
truest friend--welcomed it gladly. In 1851--a year of great trouble and
distress all over England--he thought out plans to drain parts of Eversley
(his parish), for there had been many cases of fever there, and Kingsley
was pre-eminently a _practical_ Christian. He was also far ahead of his
time (as all great men invariably are), and he saw clearly how inseparably
close in this present world is the connection between physical matters and
spiritual. He recognized that if a man is _living_ in unsanitary
conditions, it affects in a very real though inexplicable way his
spiritual life. He could trace the connection in a parishioner's life
history between bad drainage and drunkenness: later on--though it might
perhaps be very much later on--a "bee-in-the-bonnet" of his child: and he
saw in this unhappy, unfortunate Little Result the outcome of someone's
sinful failure in his duty to his neighbour in years gone by, when the
first insanitary conditions were allowed to live and be mighty.
In some senses drainage, therefore, has a decided effect upon the
spiritual life of men and women. Everyone probably will remember Dr.
Nettleship's resolute assertion, that "even a stomach-ache could be a
spiritual experience."
And so Kingsley pushed forward the drainage improvements in his parish,
and considered it, what in very truth it was, a fitting subject for the
energies of a parish priest, at work night and day for the betterment of
the souls and bodies of his parishioners.
I cannot avoid quoting here Francis Newman's own strongly expressed views
on drainage of the land:--
"Now, the drains being out of sight, it is morally certain that defects
will exist, or be caused by wear and tear, unseen. In one place evil
liquids and gases will percolate; in another evil accumulations will
putrefy. Instead of blending small portions of needful manure quickly with
small portions of earth that needs it, we secure in the drains a slow
putrefaction and a permanent source of pestilence; we relieve a town by
imposing a grave vexation and danger on the whole neighbourhood where its
drains have exit; we make the mouth of every tide river a harbour and
storehouse of pollution; and after thus wasting an agricultural treasure
we send across the Atlantic ships for a foul commerce in a material
destined to replace it....
"It was quite notorious forty years ago that the refuse of the animal was
the food of the vegetable, and ought to be saved for use, not wasted in
poisoning waters. How could well-informed men delude themselves into an
approval of this course? Only one explanation occurs: _they despaired of
returning to Nature_. They assumed that we must live by artifice, and they
entitled artifice 'Science.'"
I return now to the letter from Newman to Martineau:--
_Dr. Martineau from Francis Newman._
"Southampton, Wednesday,
"_8th Oct._ 1851.
"My dear Martineau,
"Your interesting letter was sent to me by Monday afternoon, and first
told me that Miss Bremer was in London, which I learned only by a pencil
note on the outside, '142 Strand.' That evening I was going to see my two
sisters--one returned from the Continent, and one come from Derby. And on
Tuesday morning I was engaged to come hither to meet Kossuth! So I fear I
have missed Miss Bremer. But, from to-day's news, I fear there is no
chance of K. arriving till next Monday or Tuesday; and I shall probably go
back to-morrow. I will _try_ to see Miss Bremer immediately, but am much
disappointed.
"I have had a little correspondence with Mr. Kingsley lately--rising out
of a recent lecture of his, the practical results and practical principles
of which gave me great pleasure. He says he has 'done his work' of
protesting and denouncing capitalists, and now hopes to give himself to
_construction_ and practical creation; and much as I fear some of his
generalizations, I hope great good from his purely excellent aims, and the
amount of aid he can command. He agrees most heartily with my denunciation
of large towns as the monster evil, and takes the matter up agriculturally
thus: _No country can be underfed while it returns to the soil what it
takes out of it_"--[The italics are my own. Is not this sentence of
infinite value to us to-day?]--"for, in the long run, the soil will always
give back as much as it receives. Every country impoverishes itself which
pours into the rivers and sea the animal refuse which ought to be restored
to the soil.
"No community can avoid this prodigality, unless its inhabitants live upon
the soil. Therefore towns ought not to exceed the size at which the whole
animal refuse can be economically saved and directly applied to
agriculture.
"To me it seems that every reason--moral, political, agricultural,
economical, sanitary--converge to this same conclusion; and I apply
_Delenda est Carthago_ to every city in Europe.
"On the subject of masters and servants, he says, 'Masters should be
considered "_infamous_" who hired servants by the day or week, and not by
the year; or who dismissed old servants without any other reason than to
lower wages; but such a thing, to be possible and effective, must be
_mutual_. The servant must have no power to leave a good master in order
to _raise_ his wages. But at present, while the servant is under no bonds
to the master, and _does not like to bind himself_, it seems to me quite
impossible to treat the masters as having any moral responsibility for the
servants more than for foreigners. When we buy tea, we cannot ask whether
the Chinese get a comfortable livelihood by selling it at that price.'
That is an extreme and clear case to which we approach in every commercial
transaction in proportion as the other party claims that the relation
shall be one of mere marketing....
"Ever yours affectionately,
"Francis W. Newman."
The next letter, which is dated September, 1851, and which was written
just after Newman's return from his Swiss tour, goes on with the same
subject as the last, and also touches on the evils of _suddenly_
introducing machinery; while it shows clearly that, in the long run,
better wages are gained for the worker by its means--"Machinery is in
every light the friend of the poor." He says very truly, "The first great
want of the workmen is better morality and more thriftiness, _not_ better
masters or higher wages." Putting quite aside the question of whether
"higher wages" are not needed by the workman, nothing can be truer at the
present time than this fact, brought thus before us by Newman. It _is_,
beyond all question, these faults which run through the bulk of the
labouring classes (as we term them)--lack of the true spirit of morality
and thriftiness.
It is difficult altogether to account for the reason why the lack of these
characteristics is so much to the fore to-day, or to think of the remedy
which shall reach and cure them. But that it is a presence in our midst is
a self-evident fact. No one who has travelled much in France (to name only
one other country), but is aware how vast is the gulf which divides the
ways of living of our own labouring classes and of those which obtain
across the water. There, thriftiness is the rule. They use a far simpler
diet, and one which the land supplies them with, and are content. There is
a far more healthy tone about them, even if it be a rough one, than there
is among our own poor. I am constantly in France myself (it is the country
of my own ancestors), and I have never failed to be struck by the absence
there, in the country, of the vice which disfigures so often the home life
of our villagers. You do not see there the sights that make the streets on
Saturday evening in England a degrading scene. When the French villager is
happy, he can be it without the aid of drunkenness. And as far as the
cultivation of the land is concerned--well, we need only look at home in
our "French Farming" schemes to-day and we shall find that when we want to
come "back to the land," to find out how much care and industry will bring
out of it, we have to send for a Frenchman to show us his country's
secrets of manuring the land, so that the soil becomes precious and will
yield, even from so small a space as a quarter of an acre, incalculable
riches in the way of marketable goods.
As regards what Newman says about the work_women_ of England, it is
impossible to agree with him. It is most assuredly not the case in
thousands of instances that "there are _no_ good workwomen out of work, or
earning low wages," nor that "those who cannot get good wages are women
who have _spent their prime in idleness_ ... and sew badly."
One has but to refer to the statistics with which the Christian Social
Union supplies us, as well as other societies, to have this idea quickly
negatived. Mrs. Carlyle's experiences and Mrs. Newman's were evidently
involuntarily misleading.
There was a certain impulsiveness in discussing many subjects to which
Newman seems to have been peculiarly subject. He was sometimes so led away
by it as to dogmatize inaccurately or over-forcibly.
_Dr. Martineau from Francis Newman._
"My dear Martineau,
"... In a day or two I am meditating a visit to Froude, who is in Wales,
and too much in solitude." [Froude was then preparing or writing his
_History of England_. It will be remembered that Cardinal Newman's
influence over him at college decided him later on taking Holy Orders, but
he never went beyond the diaconate.] "Gladstone's letters just now are a
powerful stimulus to public opinion.... Not the Socialists only, but
numbers of workmen besides treat it as _an abstract wickedness_ in a
master to offer lower wages than are at any particular time existing. They
have never any objection to a _rise_ of wages; so I cannot say they treat
the existing rate as a divinely appointed amount; but they do not see that
if they are unwilling to bind themselves not to strike for a rise, they
ought to concede in the master a moral right to lower.... What is to be
done with those who will go on enunciating and propagating dangerous
general maxims as abstract axiomatic truth?... _Your_ method of making the
masters determine how many _shall enter_ a trade will succeed; but I do
not see that it will succeed in ejecting. In the years of railroad
excitement the London newspapers were enormously overworked, and a great
increase no doubt took place in the numbers of printers (perhaps also in
their wages); now the printers for some time have been in comparative
depression.... I do not contend that _all_ lowering of wages by masters is
merciful and just, but that _some_ may be; whereas the Socialists and Co.
instantly declaim against _all_ or _any_ lowering, without entering into
any details as to present or past history of the trade. When I said that
machinery is in every light the friend of the poor, I do not think I
overlooked the occasional mischief caused by its _sudden_ introduction....
The effect of machinery is in the long run a steady rise of wages as well
as a cheap supply of goods: the advantage to the poor is universal and
permanent, the evil is partial and transitory. Moreover, the evil is
immensely aggravated by their perverseness. Three generations of hand-loom
weavers have been propagated in spite of the notorious misery it must
cause. Machinery does _not_ raise the rate of profits or interest; it
_does_ raise the rate of wages: compare Manchester and Buckingham in
proof.... I do not think I am _at all_ carried into reaction by unjust
attacks on capitalists, but I am very strongly by the [right or wrong]
belief that the first great want of the workmen is better morality and
more thriftiness, _not_ better masters or higher wages. I have not dared
to print half of what are my convictions on this head.... The sufferings
of the poor from bad air and bad water are quite a separate chapter. High
wages do little to cure this. Indeed, in Manchester the workmen habitually
prefer to save a shilling a week in house rent and spend it in beefsteaks,
when the shilling would have got them a healthy instead of an unhealthy
lodging. Bricklayers' wages are at present high in London; what is the
consequence? I have at present a bit of a dwarf wall building in my
garden. The men leave their work; I complain; the builder replies: 'Men
will not come to work on a Monday without much trouble.' I fear this
_means_ that they drink on Sunday and are very 'seedy' on Monday morning.
The very men who are excited by high wages to drinking and idleness will
make a violent outcry when a fall of wages takes place, and _moreover_
will get the ear and sympathies of Maurice and Co. for their outcry."
"Maurice and Co." of course refers to Frederick Denison Maurice, who was
the principal mover in the Christian Socialism of the day, as he was in
all social reforms. He had met with much abuse and opposition, but still
there were very many who called him "Master." Amongst these last was
Charles Kingsley, who had been one of his pupils, and who had been very
greatly influenced by his opinion in religion and social matters.
[Footnote: Kingsley (see memoir) said to Maurice, when opposition was
fiercest against him: "Your cause is mine. We swim in the same boat, and
stand or fall thenceforth together."] Neither man could bear the
narrowness of "parties" in religion. They always demanded more toleration,
broader views, and refused to be bound by narrow creeds. It was owing
chiefly to Coleridge that Maurice took Holy Orders. He was born in that
year of great men, 1805, and by 1851 his socialistic ideas were well known
to the world.
"As to the milliners and tailors, my wife has the same experience as Mrs.
Carlyle, that there are _no_ good workwomen out of work, or earning low
wages. Mrs. Wedgwood tells me that the Ladies' Committee could not get
women to make the shirts.... Those who cannot get good wages are women who
have _spent their prime in idleness_, and cannot work well enough to
satisfy ladies. They sew badly, and get a poor pittance from the shops. As
to tailors, I give more for a coat by four or five shillings than I did
twenty-five years ago.... Until our national morality is much improved,
and our moral organization repaired, there must be a large body of persons
without any trade, art, or connection who will throw themselves into what
seems to be the easiest art, and by their numbers will swamp it....
"Ever your affectionate
"Francis W. Newman."
It should be mentioned here that in 1853 Manchester New College was moved
to London, but that it was not until 1857, that Dr. Martineau went to live
in town, in order to devote his time chiefly to the important work which
devolved upon him in connection with it. This he continued to do until
1885. Newman had been appointed in 1846 to the chair of Latin in
University College, a post he held until 1863.
The next letter of this period, addressed to Martineau, gives one an
insight as to the effect of beauty of scenery upon Newman. He was far
removed from the ordinary point of the rapid traveller of to-day, who only
seems to want to cover great distances at rapid speed, and can therefore
have no conception at all of what we might call the "atmospheric
environment" of a place, which can only be felt by quiet moving, as Newman
expresses it, "from point to point," to "see how aspects and proportions
change."
_Dr. Martineau from Francis Newman._
"Grisedale Bridge,
"Patterdale, near Penrith,
"_31st July_ 1854.
"My dear Martineau,
"I have been faithless in not writing to you before now....
"We are more delighted than ever with Patterdale. Probably enough you know
the beauties of _your_ neighbourhood so well, and esteem them so highly,
that you turn as deaf an ear as I do to all praises of other parts. I have
so strong a sense of the inexhaustibility of beauty, that it aids me to
repress the restlessness which is kindled by other persons' praises of
what is unknown to me....
"Unless I had _my own_ carriage I get little pleasure from touring. What I
want is to stop at the beautiful places, and go from point to point and
see how aspects and proportions change; this in fact you seldom do well
except on foot and at leisure. The walks here are inexhaustible, for
persons who can carry with them their book or other occupation, and stay
out four or five hours; but you want reasonably dry weather, else indeed
the swampiness of the mountains greatly lessens the number of feasible or
pleasant walks, besides impairing the beauty.
"I only get a newspaper once a week, and in such a crisis feel hungry for
news as the week goes on." [The "crisis," of course, was the near approach
at this time of the beginning of those hostilities which were to end in
the Crimean war.] "Lest the Eastern question should flag in interest by
lingering, lo! the Spanish insurrection breaks on us. I do not yet dare to
hope European benefits from Spain: should such be the ultimate result, it
will be a striking illustration how incalculable is the _course_ of
events, while the general end is not very obscure.
"Mr. Charles Loring Brace, of America (who, you may know, was imprisoned
in Hungary), sent to me an introduction from Theodore Parker. It is highly
probable he had one to you....
"The post summons.
"Ever yours,
"F. W. N."
Harriet Martineau, sister of Dr. Martineau, was fifty-three years of age
when Newman wrote to her brother about her illness. Practically for the
whole of her life she had been more or less of an invalid. Even as a girl
she suffered so much from deafness and wretched health, that she was
hardly ever free from anxiety and depression. Nevertheless she did not let
her ill-health prevent her from earning her livelihood by writing. Before
she made her name by the publication of her stories on political economy,
she experienced endless difficulties in her efforts to get publishers for
her books. But no sooner had these stories appeared than her fame was
assured, and money came in, so to speak, by handfuls, so that all
financial troubles were altogether at an end.
From 1839 till 1844 she was so terribly out of health that no treatment
produced any effect, until someone suggested that mesmerism should be
tried, and this succeeded so well that she recovered a certain amount of
strength and was able to go on with her writing. Nevertheless, that it did
not wholly restore her health is evident from the fact that in 1855, when
Newman was writing to her brother, he mentions her "formidable fainting
fits" and daily pains in the head. "Her letter tells me," he says, "how
very bad she is, that every day she feels shot in the head"; but he goes
on to say that he does not despair of her better health because (as indeed
her numerous books testify), her "body is so subject to her mind." It is,
I think, necessary to remember that in 1844, when Miss Martineau tried
mesmerism as a cure for her continued ill-health, mesmerism was
practically taking its first steps in the English medical world. This
science of healing, which began to be recognized in England about the
middle of the eighteenth century, through the medium of the afterwards
discredited Mesmer, has "in its day played many parts" and had more names
than one. In the first instance it was called mesmerism, then animal
magnetism, while to-day, when it has forced its way through incredulity,
distrust, and opposition of all sorts, and come to the front in very
truth, it faces us as a power which bids fair to be more and more with us
as time goes on under the name of Hypnotism.
Perhaps few people remember the name of the man who really brought animal
magnetism into prominence in the middle of the last century. Yet James
Braid, the Scotch surgeon, who then lived at Manchester, and pursued with
untiring thoroughness and perseverance his studies in the then little-
known science, was really the shoulder that pushed hypnotism into our
midst. It was Braid, indeed, who caused the name of "hypnotism" to eject
that of "mesmerism" in England. He was never properly appreciated during
his lifetime. But if he was not, he was only one of numerous examples
which are always being brought up before our eyes (among those of our
countrymen who have rendered their country signal services), who
illustrate the famous English quotation, "Thus angels walked the earth
unknown, and _when they flew were recognized_"
Braid, however, proved effectually that the mesmeric phenomena depend
altogether on the physiological condition of the person operated on, and
not on the power of the operator.
_Dr. Martineau from Newman._
"7 P.V.E.,
"_17th Feb._, 1855.
"My dear Martineau,
"You will believe that the state of your sister's health gives me much
concern. She has kindly written twice to me. The second letter tells of
formidable fainting fits, which I cannot explain away; yet, as I told her
in my reply to her first, her symptoms _in general_ are so similar to my
own that I cannot but hope her physician views them too seriously, and
_does her harm by it_. I, on the whole, believe that my own heart is
unsound organically (distended), but my experience certainly is that the
less I attend to it _in detail_ the better, though I must in prudence
avoid impure air and other evils. Her second letter tells me as a decisive
proof how very bad she is, that every day she feels _shot_ in the head.
"Now this is exactly the symptom I have for nine months been struggling to
subdue, and as my wife knows, I am, week by week, balancing whether to put
myself under a doctor for it.... The spasm which distresses me comes at
the crisis when I ought to go to sleep, and so wakes me up. I could not
get rid of it even in the summer, on days on which I had least mental
effort, and was in all other respects conscious of great vigour....
"I went to a physician to complain of _sleeplessness_ and got the reply
that it was my _heart_ that was diseased.... Your sister's body is so
subject to her mind that I do not despair that, either through mesmerism
restoring sleep or in some other way, she may rally far beyond her present
expectation. I know a lady who was dying of brain fever, and could get no
sleep until the physician called in a mesmerist; this gained sleep for
her, and by that alone she recovered without medicine."
Dr. Martineau was one of the founders of the _National Review_ in 1855,
and frequently contributed articles to it. This next letter treats mainly
of the proposed lines on which the magazine was to be run--its politics,
points of view, etc.
_Dr. Martineau from Newman._
"_14th June_, 1855.
"My dear Martineau,
"I have seen with interest that your scheme of the National Review is
resumed, and I am told that you and Walter Bagehot are the political
editors. Supposing that your politics are not essentially different from
those of the _Westminster_ the _Review_ is of _practical_ interest to me,
in spite of my unfortunate collision last year, for which I hope you have
forgiven me. I wrote in the last _Westminster_ the last article on the
"Administrative Example of the United States," and in the forthcoming
number I have written the second article on "International Immorality." I
wrote them freely, and indeed could not comfortably take money from
Chapman in his present circumstances, but I would much rather write for
the _National Review_ if I am admissible.... I value _forms_ of government
in proportion as they develop moral results in individual man; and if I
_now_ am democratic for Europe, it is not from any abstract and exclusive
zeal for democracy, all the weaknesses of which I keenly feel, but because
the dynasties, having first corrupted or destroyed the aristocracies, and
next become hateful, hated, and incurable themselves, have left no
government possible which shall have stability and morality except the
democratic. In England my desire is to ward off this result, to which, I
think, our aristocracy are driving fast by uniting their cause with the
perfidious immoralities of the Continent.
"Your political prospectus seems to me to be delusive by its vagueness. I
mean, that it is no sort of security after misunderstandings between
editors and writers. I think it is liable practically to lead to the
result that one man's mind seems undesirably to assume the authority of a
confederation;... but where Truth is sought, this is not easily borne.
Have you considered whether you may not do as the _Revue des Deux Mondes_,
which admits independent essays with the writer's name signed? I value the
convenience of anonymous writing, and I do not wish to see it destroyed;
but it is undoubtedly abused and overdone, and I think every movement in
the opposite direction has its use."
I think that when reviewing many of Newman's ideas--ideas considered as
strongly tending to socialism of a sort--it is wise to bear in mind these
words in this letter: "If I _now_ am democratic for Europe, it is not from
any abstract or exclusive zeal for democracy, all the weaknesses of which
I keenly feel." For they show very clearly that his was a mind which
refused any party labelling. The reform was the thing with him, and the
means by which this was brought about were only secondary and subordinate.
In September, 1856, Newman was at Ventnor; and though apparently still
suffering from his heart and indigestion, found that he was able to bathe
in the sea with much pleasure to himself. He gives voice to his surprise
that, in those days, there should be so strong a feeling against "mixed
bathing," as the term is: and he quotes articles and letters which he had
seen in which disgust was expressed at "ladies bathing within reach of
telescopes" and "at the indecency of promiscuous bathing"! This excessive
over-prudishness, which has always, since early Victorian days,
distinguished England, possesses as much vitality (even when, happily,
dying) as that of the conger eel, whom no killing seems really to kill!
The earlier part of the letter deals with the disputes of the "three
tutors against Dr. Hawkins," Provost of Oriel in 1830, and also with the
proposal that his brother, John Henry Newman, should be made third
secretary of the local Bible Society.
In the _Letters of Rev. J. B. Mozley, D.D._, edited by his sister in 1884,
there is a good deal of information given about the Oxford of that day,
and this account of the dispute in 1830 occurs in one of Dr. Mozley's
letters from Oriel College:--
"All sorts of rumours have gone abroad respecting the differences between
the tutors, and it has received a most amusing variety of versions. It has
been described as a strike for advance of wages or more pupils, which of
course has fitted well into the probable falling off of the college
consequent on the Heresy: at Tunbridge, a friend ... was told, the junior
fellows had combined to turn out the Provost! For my part, I think it no
more use trying to send abroad a correct account of it, for it is not easy
to make it obvious to the meanest capacities, and everybody nowadays seems
to feel himself justified in contending that to be truest which is the
most consonant to his understanding.... I take it there is little doubt of
H. Wilberforce being elected here, to Oriel, next year ... he is
considered sure of his Double First...."
Of the Rev. Mr. Hill, mentioned by Newman as the "old secretary of the
Bible Society," Dr. Mozley speaks in connection with the constant
opposition and ill-humoured references to Pusey which at that time were
rife at Oxford.
As regards "Bulteel" of Exeter College, Dr. Mozley thus speaks of him:
"Bulteel's sincere belief is that there is a new system of things in the
course of revelation now, as there was in our Saviour's time, and that God
has given him the power of working miracles for the same reason as He gave
it to the Apostles--in order to convince unbelievers.... There can be
little doubt that Bulteel is partially deranged. I should not be much
surprised if, before long, he attempts miracles of a more obvious kind."
As regards Hurrell Froude, Fellow and tutor of Oriel College, he, John
Henry Newman, and Pusey were all three close friends in 1822. Hurrell
Froude exercised a strong influence over J. H. Newman, and it was he who
was one of the leaders in the Tractarian movement in 1833. He was a man of
wonderful genius and originality, and it was a distinct loss to the world
when, in 1836, he died. I cannot help quoting here the "private critique"
written in 1838, and quoted by Miss Mozley in her volume, with reference
to his _Remains_:--
"It is very interesting and clever, but I must say I felt as if I was
committing an impertinence in reading his private journal-probably the
most really private journal that ever was written.... I am very curious to
know what kind of sensation his views will make, uttered so carelessly,
instead of in Keble's, or Pusey or Newman's grand style."
With respect to Dr. Hawkins, the Provost (whose influence was in many ways
a powerful one with J4 H. Newman), I quote two passages from letters of
Dr. Mozley. One is dated 1836 and the other 1847 (during the Gladstone
Election):--
"The Provost alluded in the most distant way to the sore subject (the
condemnation of heretics) last Sunday. He observed that it was a
disgusting habit in persons finding fault with other people's theology.
Nothing so tended to make the mind narrow and bitter. They had much better
be employing themselves in some active and useful way. This is laughable
as coming from the Provost, who has been doing nothing else but objecting
all his life." And:--
"The Provost has behaved very characteristically. He has been for once in
his life fairly perplexed; and he has doubled and doubled again, and
shifted and crept into holes; at last vanished up some dark crevice, and
nothing was seen but his tail. One thought one was to see no more of him,
when, on one of the polling mornings, he suddenly emerged, like a rat out
of a haystack, and voted for Round. The Heads, in fact, have been
thoroughly inefficient. The election has literally gone on _without_ them.
They have done nothing."
_Dr. Martineau from Francis Newman._
"_18th Sept._, 1856.
"My dear Martineau,
"Your welcome letter finds me still here. I certainly did not contemplate
that I was speaking for the public ear on such a subject. I have a pain
from it (chiefly from a sense, perhaps, that I should not like my brother
to know or suspect that the information came from me), yet I cannot blame
your proceeding, or question your right, so carefully and tenderly as you
guard against objection.... The Rev. Mr. Hill, Vice-Principal of St.
Edmund's Hall, was the old secretary of the (local) Bible Society. The
Rev. Benjamin Parson Symons (now warden of Wadham College) is he who
proposed and carried that my brother should be a third secretary.
"I think I told you that Symons was the _second_ secretary; but I now
doubt whether the second was not Rev.---- Bulteel, of Exeter College, then
an evangelical preacher of St. Ebb's Church in Oxford, much attended by
Edmund Hall men. The after vote rescinding my brother's secretaryship was
proposed by Benjamin Newton, a young Fellow of Exeter College, if this is
of any importance.... The affair of the three tutors against Dr. Hawkins
was told me exactly as I had it from my brother's lips; but the whole must
have been strictly public. The other tutors were Robert Isaac Wilberforce
(since Archdeacon and Roman Catholic), Richard Hurrell Froude, known by
his _Remains_; and a much older man, Dornford, now a rector in Devonshire,
who adhered to Hawkins. This took place in 1830, when my brother was only
twenty-nine, Wilberforce his junior, and Hurrell Froude _my_ junior in the
University; probably my equal in age, i.e. then twenty-five; so it was
_young_ Oxford versus old. When the three tutors resigned (whose youth was
a result of the Oriel Fellows going off so quick), Hawkins brought into
the tutorship young Coplestone, as he was called--a nephew of the
Bishop;... I almost think that for a time he resumed lecturing himself:
but it will not do to say so.... I have here found out (after more than
ten years' cessation) that I can swim as well as ever, and without
discomfort to my heart. I am becoming quite zealous for my daily swim,
even when (as to-day) the south-west gives us rather too much sea, to the
chagrin of the bathing men. Perhaps you have seen various letters in _The
Times_, etc., on the indecency of promiscuous bathing, etc. I cannot
understand why they all direct their attack to the wrong point, and insist
on driving people into solitudes and separations very inconvenient,
instead of demanding that, as on the Continent, both sexes be clad in the
water. Last year I saw an article that expressed disgust at ladies bathing
within reach of _telescopes_! There is here such a colony of foreigners,
that I hope they may teach this lesson. Besides the Pulszkys, who are a
family of twelve persons, there are seven of Kossuth's household, a large
family of Marras (Italian), three of Janza (Viennese), two or more
Piatti's (Italian), who keep company together, and very many of whom bathe
statedly. Mrs. Pulszky is not well this year for swimming; but last year
she swam daily, with her husband and an intimate male friend at her side.
He will not let her swim in the sea without him, and is amazed at English
husbands consenting to abandon their wives as they do. Mrs. Walter, her
mother, is a devoted bather, and whenever the breakers are formidable has
the aid of one or other male friend. It is a new fact to me, that the
Viennese ladies, as a thing of course, are taught to swim in the Danube.
There are regular teachers of swimming for both sexes, and a sort of
diploma is granted to those who swim well enough to be at home in the
water." [This is a phrase that was used to me; it now occurs to me that it
may have been merely _metaphorical_, when the teacher says _Macte
virtute_, etc., and concludes his lessons.]
"Of course, our climate does not allow the facilities of tropical waters
(where alligators and sharks, however, are not facilities!); but the sea
is fit for bathing with us as many months as the Danube, though I suppose
never so warm as the Danube at its warmest.... If I could be with you at
Derwentwater again, I think I should be less indisposed to try an oar.
Indigestion or sleeplessness, not exertion, seems to be the chief enemy of
my heart, which yet cannot bear exertion when so suffering. I am giving
myself abundant ease, and never enjoyed myself with so much 'abandon.' We
both like this place extremely.
"With kindest regards to all around you,
"I am, very affectionately yours,
"F. W. Newman."
In 1857, as I mentioned before, Dr. Martineau came up to London to live,
having been asked by the authorities of Manchester New College to take
more share in the work there than he had hitherto done. He was made
Principal of the College in 1868, and held the post until 1885.
There is something in the letter which follows which must have made a very
special appeal to Martineau--for this reason: that there is in it a
passionate "abandon" quite foreign to Newman's usual style. He seems to
have given rein to a sudden impulse of enthusiasm for his friend, and his
letter, from start to finish, is full of it. He is evidently longing that
Martineau should find in his London audience all the appreciation which
his great talents deserved. And perhaps this is the thought which prompted
those sentences which seem to urge him to curb the powerful steeds of his
intellectual vigour, and not to give so lavishly or in such unstinted
measure as in his sermons he had hitherto been accustomed to do. Newman
says that in his preaching "there is _superfluous_ intellectual effort."
He adds that from "_intellectual_ persons "he has heard the complaint that
the "effort to follow is too great"; and he entreats him to prepare each
sermon "with less _intellectual_ effort, though, of course, not with less
devotional purpose."
_Dr. Martineau from Newman._
"7 P.V.E.,
"_30th May_, 1857.
"My dear Martineau,
"Perhaps you are already pulling up your tent-pegs: rather a heart-
breaking work, especially to those who so love beauty and have surrounded
themselves within doors with so much. You _need_, dear friend, a broad and
fruitful field in London for your spiritual activity to recompense the
great--the very great--sacrifices you must make in parting from all that
you have loved in Liverpool. I have felt this so deeply that I never knew
exactly how to _wish_ that you might come to London; and, indeed, this
place, so emphatically _dissipated_," [that is, _mente dissipatá
distractá_] "does not prize its great minds so much as smaller places
would. ... Beloved friend, you know that great expectations are formed of
you. It is hard, most hard, not to let this draw you into great
intellectual effort, from which I fear much. For your literary lecturing,
of course, I have no word of dissuasion. But let me assure you that in
your preaching there is _superfluous_ intellectual effort. It would be
spiritually more effective if there were far less perfection of literary
beauty and less condensation of refined thought and imaginative metaphor.
I hear again and again from _intellectual_ persons the complaint that the
effort to follow your meaning is too great, and impairs both the pleasure
and profit of listening to you. I myself am conscious that wonder and
admiration of your talent is apt to absorb and stifle the properly
spiritual influence, and when I _read_ your sermons, I often pause so long
on single sentences as to be fully aware that I could have got little good
from _hearing_ them. I know that no two men's nature is the same, and
habit is a second nature. Do not imagine that I wish you not to be
yourself. (There is no danger of that.) But I am sure that by cultivating
more of what the French call 'abandon'--by preparing with less
_intellectual_ effort for each separate sermon--though, of course, not
with less devotional purpose--and by letting your immediate impulse have a
large play in comparison to your previous study, there will be less danger
of overworking your mind and fuller effect on those who are to benefit.
... I dare say you received from me the new volume of _Religious Duties_.
Its author seems to me _primitively_ to have belonged to what you call the
class of ethical minds, but to have passed beyond it, and now to be at
once Passionate and Spiritual. And is not this the natural and rightful
thing, that though we begin with a fragmentary, we tend towards an
integral religion? This book has been to me most delightful and
profitable, and I trust you will also find it so. Such a revelation of a
pure, tender, ardent spirit is itself an inexpressible stimulus, and has
given me quite a flood of joy and sympathy.
"The doctrine of immortality so unhesitatingly avowed (?) affects me as
nothing from Theodore Parker on the same subject ever did. The love and
joy in God flowing out of it is so spontaneous and kindling as to make me
long to say,--I now no longer _hope_ only, but _I am sure_. In any case I
do rejoice that others can so believe, and I pray that if this be a mere
cloud over _my_ eyes, it may at length be taken away. Not that I have any
deficiency of _happiness_ from this, but I have a great deficiency of
_power_, and I am painfully out of sympathy with others by it.
"I want to cultivate, if I knew how, rather more free communication with
those who supremely love God as the Good One, and who will bear with me! I
much need this, if I could get it. But however shut up I may seem, believe
that a fire of love for you burns in my heart. With warm regards to Mrs.
Martineau,
"Your affectionate friend,
"F. W. Newman."
I should like to quote here words illustrative of this side of Newman's
personality, that side which reveals him "at once passionate and
spiritual," longing to attain to religious truth, and not railing against
the forms of dogma which have led other men into "the kingdom of heaven,"
as was his too frequent habit. These words were written by him when he
seemed to himself to have reached some measure of spiritual intuition, and
there is great beauty in them:--
"None can enter the kingdom of heaven without becoming a little child. But
behind and after this, there is a mystery revealed to but few, namely,
that if the soul is to go on into higher spiritual blessedness it must
become a _woman_. Yes, however manly thou be among men, it must learn to
love being dependent; must lean on God, not solely from distress or alarm,
but because it does not like independence or loneliness.... God is not a
stern judge, exacting every tittle of some law from us.... He does _not_
act towards us (spiritually) by generalities... but His perfection
consists in dealing with each case by itself as if there were no others."
And now, before concluding this chapter, I take two much later letters
written by Newman to Martineau; one is dated 1888 and the other 1892. The
first one is written quite clearly--which is wonderful when one remembers
that he was then eighty-three--and the other, four years later, is cramped
and not so easy to decipher. Still, in the first of these letters he
himself says, "I have to write as slow as any little schoolboy... and
cannot help some blunders." He had been to Birmingham on the 20th June to
see Cardinal Newman, and mentions how travelling by rail tried his head.
The latter part of the letter relates to a big dinner composed chiefly of
Anglo-Indians and their _attachés_. There is one lighted sentence near the
end which brings before one's mental eye his often-expressed "Mene, Mene,
Tekel Upharsin," with regard to the Indian Empire, our past
misgovernments, and our present failure to recognize old promises: "The
glorification of our Indian policy only made me melancholy."
The "degree" which Martineau was to receive was no doubt his "Doctor of
Divinity" degree which he took in 1884 (Edinburgh). Dr. Jowett, it will be
remembered, was, throughout his whole life, closely identified with
Balliol College. He was Fellow in 1838, tutor of his college from 1840
till 1870, when he was chosen as Master. Ruskin (to whom reference is made
in the second letter) gave the larger part of his originally large fortune
to the founding of St. George's Guild. This was intended to be a sort of
agricultural community of "old-world virtues" for young and old, "and
ancient and homely methods." One of his great aims was the promoting of
home industries. As regards Newman's reference to politics at the end of
letter No. 2 in 1888, Gladstone's Government was but just _breathing_
after the sharp tussle they had been through with the Home Rule party,
with Parnell at their head. In 1886 Gladstone had brought in the measure
which was to give Ireland a "statutory parliament." This was practically
the signal for a disastrous rent which tore his party in two, and was the
precursor of their defeat at the next General Election.
_Dr. Martineau from Newman._
"_6th July_, 1888.
"My dear Martineau,
"I did not know that the day of Oxford Convocation was June 20th. I was
engaged to the Worcester College Gaudy for the 21st. Had I known that on
the 20th you were to receive the degree, I should have been tempted to
come and 'assist,' though I have always had an instinctive hatred of such
mobs.
"I was at Birmingham on the 20th to see my brother. The noises on the rail
greatly affected my brain and stomach. Noise was increased in the bedroom
at Oxford, beside which heavy goods went to the rail, and I had two bad
nights, partly from that cause, aided by the mental excitement up to
midnight." [It is not difficult to understand this "excitement." The
meeting between the brothers was never devoid of a certain mental
reticence. It must almost have been impossible to forget the fact that
about the subject on which each had always been most keenly exercised,
they were worlds apart.]
"When I reached home I thought myself _quite well_, but soon found I could
not write a word without one or more blunders in several letters, and a
needful epistle became a heap of unsightly blots. This is only
exaggeration of a weakness becoming normal with me. I have to write as
slow as any little schoolboy. My housemaid was alarmed without my knowing
it; but mere rest and sleep in some days removed my wife's alarms. But I
still am forced to write very slowly, and cannot help some blunders.... On
the morning of the 22nd I called on Jowett, who instantly said, 'Tonight
is _our_ Gaudy; you _must_ come to it.' I had to beg off from my Worcester
College host. (I was on my way to see friends in a neighbouring village.)
I sat down to dinner with 102 guests; such a company as I never before
_looked_ at. I name chiefly high Anglo-Indians and their various
_attachés_ (members of Balliol College): _oi peri_ Lords Northbrook,
Ripon, and Lansdowne, three Viceroys of India, and Sir Gordon Duff, late
Governor of Bombay." [It will not have been forgotten that the part played
by Lord Lansdowne and Lord Ripon in 1833, with respect to the Bill for the
discontinuance of the East India Company's trade, was not a very
distinguished one.]
"Many smaller stars, Mr. Ilbert of name well known, and (long ago to _me_
well known) General Richard Strachy, eager for bi-metallism. He began, but
alas! could not finish his elucidation to me, how it would relieve Indian
finance, without _anyone_ losing _any_thing, or any lessening of payment,
or dismissing officers, or the English Government paying anything, nor any
unlucky last holder of coin or paper losing. The miracle (as to me it
seemed) was to be wrought, not by a double standard--that was an ignorant
mistake--but by a _single standard metal_, composed of gold and silver in
fixed ratio. I was not happy enough (or unhappy enough) to _learn_ how
this was to result; but his eagerness and confidence were to me a
surprising phenomenon.
"A Worcester College man told me that your _Types of Morals_ had already
left a _strong_ impression on younger men. I think there has not yet been
time for the second great book and work.
"The glorification of our Indian Policy only made me melancholy. I hope
you now get full and real rest. Though I _feel_ as in perfect health, I
have to say to myself, _Non sum qualis eram_, and take warnings. Pray, do
you the same.
"Affectionately, to you and yours,
"F. W. Newman."
"In London vegetarianism seems going ahead. I have, still struggling
through the press, _Reminiscences of Two Exiles and Two Wars_. The Quakers
will be at once pleased and angry if that is possible."
_Dr. Martineau from Newman._
"_19th Aug._, 1892.
"My dear Martineau,
"I seem to have allowed you to get quite out of my sight. This is a result
of my practical renunciation of London, the place which seems too exciting
for me. I do not wonder that you so early take refuge in far Scotland. I
so mortified my dear friend Anna Swanwick last year by my sudden retreat
from the overstrain of her house, that I did not dare to repeat the trial
this year; indeed, I should deeply alarm my wife by attempting it, and,
alas! dear Anna herself proved unable to sustain herself--due, I suppose,
to the self-imposed task of her new book. Though I am myself (foolishly
perhaps) reprinting a tract on Etruscan, I see how many things are better
left to younger minds. I am here (near Bewdley, Worcestershire) to make
personal acquaintance with a remarkable man who has made marked advances
to me for more (I think) than three years. He _was_ a protégé of Ruskin's
and member of St. George's Guild. As such he was (apparently) reared under
Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Carlyle more than under Ruskin, and heard
all the side of English Agnosticism. But with the growth of his own mind
he became dissatisfied, and now for fourteen years he has given himself to
a fruit farm of four and a half acres, with a cow and kitchen-garden and
pigs! and abundant poultry, and looks the type of the future English
peasant. His wife and one trusty woman manage dairy and cookery with
eminent success, and various sales, while he is cow-milker and gardener,
student also of fruit and of the soil. _It is to me an interest as a
foresight of the future_. He is a _student_ of our hardest literature, and
employs no labourer under him. Ignorant of foreign tongues, he reads
German translations and Jowett's _Plato_.... A school friend of Mr.
Braithwaite lately sought my acquaintance.... He tells me that Mr.
Gladstone lately gave to the world the utterance that among the
possibilities of the immediate future he now sees, rather than any general
Agnosticism, a simple recurrence to the simple Judaic Godhead. I _wish_
well to Gladstone's new Cabinet, but fear that the trickiness by which he
led Parnell's folk to aid Salisbury's overthrow will arouse a fatal
resentment. If he espouse the Indian claims, that may save him. My best
regards to all yours, and earnest wishes.
"Your affectionate friend,
"F. W. Newman."
Mr. Estlin Carpenter wrote lately to me to say that he does not know of
any evidence to prove that Newman and Martineau were "acquainted, or at
least intimate," before the former became tutor of Manchester College. He
says their correspondence ended in 1892, and he imagines that Newman's
"declining health during the last two or three years made further writing
impossible," but that their warm regard for each other, up to the very
end, was unalterable.
CHAPTER VI
FRANCIS NEWMAN AS A TEACHER
Francis Newman was certainly one of the greatest mathematical and
classical scholars of his day. So that when the authorities of University
College secured him for their staff, they knew that they could have
obtained no better man for their purpose.
As a teacher he showed an infinite fertility of method in dealing with the
young men who, there for the purpose of learning, yet did not always
_want_ to learn! He had, in especial, that rather vague and narrow
definition of genius--"an infinite capacity for taking pains." He "took"
them always with any scholar who had failed to grasp his meaning in some
one of his instructions. He could put the whole matter in some absolutely
new light--take it from an utterly different point of view; so that, while
giving another chance to the slow-witted, he did not keep his whole class
waiting. The quality of teaching is not strained. It is doubtful if it is
capable of being learnt, if not in the first instance, in some measure,
innate. Lying dormant in a man's being--even if, perhaps, its presence is
unrecognized by its owner--it can certainly be developed by him when he is
conscious of it. But if the power in embryo be absent, it is a difficult
matter indeed to attain by effort any capacity of which one has not
already the beginnings in oneself. Indeed, a famous writer of another age
has written the word "impossible" against this attempt.
Frank Newman could, and would, take any trouble to help any dull student
over some mathematical or classical stile, but he was not an adept at
quickly getting into touch with that Presence which has moved, in
whimsical measure, through the ways and by-ways of this life since the
world began with coat of many colours, upon which the sun of merry
imagination was always sparkling, and cap and bells which could for the
moment ring sudden, spontaneous mirth across the shadows of the darkest
day. If in medieval days it could cross the cell of some grave and
reverend monastery, and guide the hand of some sculptor busy at his
gargoyle for some majestic church, surely it could, with the greatest ease
in the world, cross the threshold of some crowded class-room where a
learned, absorbed professor was endeavouring to gain the attention of a
number of young men rejoicing in their youth and on the look-out for the
first suggestion of the Spirit of Humour. Frank Newman was not quick at
appreciating the quips and cranks, the--to others--irresistibly mirth-
provoking sallies of humour. He was not quick at seeing a joke. And when
middle age was well past with him, he did not always see when he had
himself been provocative of an upset of gravity on the part of the
students. He did not always discover in time the pranks and designs for
diverting the course of true knowledge in which the average young
Englishman loves to indulge. He had not a very close focus for this sort
of thing, and probably the reason was, that he was so absolutely absorbed
in the subject which he was teaching or upon which he was lecturing. But
in teaching a mixed class of boys or young men it is a _sine quâ non_ that
one possesses a "mind's eye" with easily adjustable focus, as in a
photographic camera; otherwise one cannot keep in mental touch with those
members of the class who "come to" play "and remain to" distract the
attention of fellow-students. Another reason why Newman did not appeal to
these non-studious ones was attributable to the fact that he was, in many
ways, very eccentric both in manner and dress. Now, everyone who knows the
average English boy at all, knows that if there is one thing he cannot
stand it is eccentricity. To be eccentric is to be taboo. As regards the
"correct" thing to wear, and the "correct" thing to do and how to do it,
he is generally quite as particular as the average young woman over
fashion. And anyone who offends in these respects has his name written
upon the ostracisic shell. If it happens to be a master--well, his
peculiarities are quite enough to divert the boy's attention successfully
from the weightier matters in which the master is vainly endeavouring to
instruct him.
Sir Alfred Wills, Mr. Winterbotham, Sir Edward Fry, Mr. William de Morgan,
and others, to whose kindness I am indebted for many reminiscences of
Professor Newman as a teacher, tell me that he had many eccentricities
which perpetually aroused their sense of humour. Sir Edward Fry tells me
that his manner, when he himself was at college in 1848, was "somewhat
nervous, perhaps even a little irritable, and he was not exactly popular
as a professor. But his lectures were very interesting and stimulating."
He adds that he was "a very brilliant scholar, with a tendency towards
eccentricity."
This eccentricity showed itself in various forms, but one very noticeable
one was that of dress. I am told by a friend that he often dressed in the
onion fashion--three coats one over the other, and the last one--green!
That he often wore trousers edged with a few inches of leather, and that
his hats were not immaculate. Well, perhaps it has never been quite
understood from what part of old and unfashionable attire the Spirit of
Humour winks at one with such twinkling fun in the corner of its eye that
laughter is irresistible. But none the less, few there are of us who have
not--though it may be against our steadier and wiser judgment--at some
time or other caught sight of that wink, and laughed spontaneously. To
everyone who saw it, when the relics were collected and placed in his old
house in Cheyne Row, Carlyle's old 'top' hat was irresistibly funny.
Nothing loses caste more completely than a top hat when it is behind the
time, and the shine is off the silk.
Sir Alfred Wills mentions, in the reminiscences which follow, which he has
kindly sent me, that at one time Newman "took to walking from his house"
(in town) "to the college and back in cap and gown." This, however, was
not such a startling vagary of costume in a London street as was that of a
certain professor of my acquaintance, very absent-minded and dreamy, who,
intent on making some abstruse point clear to a young lady pupil, walked
one evening round and round a London square with her, talking earnestly,
and attired in his top hat and dressing-gown!
As regards Newman's teaching of Latin, Sir Alfred Wills says that "much
the best thing that" he "got from" him "was the practice in writing" it.
He tells us that his lectures showed signs of the most profound research,
and that he took untiring trouble in explaining any difficulty which had
arisen. If the difficulty had been that of some member of one of his
classes, he would not keep the whole class waiting while he went over the
difficult part of the lesson again, but he would approach the subject from
an altogether different point of view, and throw, for the class _in toto_,
a new light upon it.
Of course it was not only in Latin that he wished to make pupils think of
it as a "spoken language," for Mr. Darbishire tells us that "one of his
special endeavours was to accustom his students to deal with Greek _as a
spoken language_" [Footnote: It will be remembered that Francis Newman
introduced the "new" pronunciation of Latin.] (as, for instance) "in
reading Greek plays." Mr. Darbishire further tells us that Newman was
accustomed to have a series of meetings in his study for conversation in
Latin.
As regards old methods of teaching Latin, I should like to quote from a
paper on "Modern Latin" which Francis Newman wrote in 1862, because there
is very much in what he says which shows where the failure of the old
system comes in:--
"In general the old method was one of repetition: _it dealt immensely in
committing Latin to memory_. Ridiculous as was the system of giving to
boys a Latin syntax in the Latin language, it at any rate did accustom
them to the reiteration of a small number of words expressed in very
simple sentences, and conveying knowledge of _immediate utility_.... While
I nevertheless believe that at most schools the boys still learn grammar
by heart, I venture to remark that the newer method of teaching, so far as
known to me, has immensely lessened the _quantity_ of Latin which is thus
learned....
"Further, it seems to me that we want what I may call a Latin novel or
romance--that is, a pleasing _tale_ of _fiction_ which shall convey
numerous Latin words which do not easily find a place in poetry, history,
or philosophy. Nothing has struck me as being so much to the purpose as an
imitation of the story of Robinson Crusoe, which brings in much that is
technical to special occupations--as in nautical affairs--carpentering,
fowling, pottery, basket-making, agriculture, etc.... If anyone had genius
to produce in Terentian style Latin comedies worthy of engaging the minds
and hearts of youth (for I can never read a play of Terence to a young
class without the heartache), I should regard this as a valuable
contribution."
I pass on now to some reminiscences, kindly contributed by Sir Alfred
Wills, of the professor in relation to his University College students in
1846:--
"I have a very distinct recollection of the personality of Mr. F. W.
Newman. He was appointed to the Professorship of Latin in University
College in 1846, and I entered the college in October, 1846, and attended
his first lecture and all those he delivered in the course of that
session.
"He was of middle stature, very well made, with a face that always
reminded me of the type of the North American Indian, with which I was
familiar from Mrs. Catlin's book published in 1841. His complexion was
dark, his hair very black and with no tendency to curl, and he wore it
long, and his nose was aquiline. He differed from the Indian type,
however, in that his face was rather narrow than broad.
"His voice was particularly clear and 'carrying,' and every syllable could
be heard. I ought to have added to my description that his eyes were blue,
bright, very expressive, and his smile, not very often seen, peculiarly
sweet and engaging. He was decidedly eccentric. At one time, in dirty
winter weather, he wore trousers of which the lower six or eight inches
were of black leather; and at another time, upon what occasion I forget,
he took to walking from his house to the college and back in cap and gown.
There was a 'Cap and Gown' movement among the students, or some of them,
in the session 1847-8, but it was not upon that occasion, for I remember
seeing him in the streets in cap and gown, and during the session 1847-8,
I was at home in bad health, having overworked myself. He would now and
then, very seldom, ask some of the students to breakfast at his house. It
was an odd mixture of hospitality and formality. He never seemed quite at
his ease on such occasions, and I have a very distinct remembrance of one
of these occasions.
"It was in singularly gloomy and bitter weather in the winter or very
early spring of 1849. We were rather a large party. There was no fire
either in the room in which we assembled or in the breakfast room; and I
have not often been colder. There was only one guest who was not a
student, and he was a certain Herr Vukovich (that was how the name was
pronounced) who had been Hungarian Minister of Justice during the short
period when Kossuth was supreme in Hungary.
"When he came in, Professor Newman said: 'Gentlemen, this is Herr
Vukovich, lately Minister of Justice in Hungary,' and then turning to Herr
V., he added, 'I shall not introduce these gentlemen to you by name, as it
would be of no interest to you; and besides, you would forget their names
at once'; and then he went off at score with, 'I have never been able to
understand, Herr Vukovich, how it is that you have never introduced the
Bactrian camel into Hungary,' and then proceeded to enlarge upon the
admirable suitability of the Bactrian camel to the climate, soil, roads,
conditions of Hungary. Herr V. _looked_ very much as if he had never heard
of the Bactrian camel.
"During the whole of the session 1846-7, Newman's lectures were the wonder
of all who heard him. We read with him some of Cicero's letters to
Atticus, and his stores of information of every description--antiquarian,
philological, historical, and literary--were absolutely marvellous. I have
never destroyed or lost my notes of them, and I feel sure that they would
justify all that I have said. We all felt that we had secured for the
college an intellectual giant. I had the great advantage of being, during
my first session, in the senior class in both Latin and Greek, and we had
for our Greek Professor Mr. Malden, who, I should think, was unsurpassed
for sound and elegant scholarship, and in whose lectures I delighted from
first to last during my two sessions (1846-7 and 1848-9), but certainly
during the first session, Professor Newman's lectures were those which
made upon me the deepest impression, which remains unimpaired to this day.
It seemed as if no trouble was too great for him to take in preparing for
them and as if nothing which could throw any light upon a set of letters,
which are often obscure and difficult, ever escaped his eagle eye or his
profound research. When I returned to college in 1848, I met with a
profound disappointment. I have been asked for my recollections, and I
must make them truthful. Professor Newman was at that time much engrossed
with his theological and religious works.
"_The Soul_ was published in 1849, and whether that may account for the
change or not, the fact is that the lectures of that session presented a
marked contrast to those of the earlier session, and I don't think I am
exaggerating when I say that they were dry and jejune to the last extent.
And I felt throughout that session that much the best thing I got from it
was the practice in writing Latin, which was always an important part of
his teaching, and in which he was a master himself. I am sure it is true
that days often passed without there being anything in the lectures which
I cared to preserve or even to note. I had that year, however, the
privilege of reading the Nicomachean Ethics with him as a private pupil,
and found him as good in Greek and as interested in illustration as I had
previously found him in his Latin lectures.
"I forbear to touch upon his private character. That impressed itself
insensibly upon us as worthy of the highest respect. But it was simply
from the natural effluence of a noble character, for we came rarely into
anything like personal intimacy with him. He was reserved and even shy,
and I doubt if any of us knew much more of him privately than I did--which
was not much."
I think these reminiscences of Sir Alfred Wills bring before us very
vividly the sort of intercourse which existed between professor and pupil
in those days. It reveals Newman as a man with whom the pupil would not
feel altogether at his ease--towards whom he would not be moved to get
into close sympathy, and this, perhaps, very largely because of a certain
stiffness and formality of manner which unavoidably erects a barrier
before any natural, spontaneous conversation.
Sir Edward Fry mentions Newman's manner as a "nervous" one, but says that
his lectures were very stimulating, leading one to infer that even if the
delivery was not arresting or impressive, yet all this was made up for by
the force and brilliance of the matter itself.
It will be remembered that, at any rate, in his Oxford days, J. H. Newman
had not an impressive manner either.
We come now to some other keenly interesting recollections--those of Mr.
William de Morgan, who has kindly written them for this memoir. Mr. de
Morgan tells me that his father and Francis Newman were old friends, but
they were widely apart on religious questions, and that he remembers "when
the Martineau controversy was at its height" he said to him: "Newman and I
were very old colleagues, and I loved and respected him. But if I had been
supposed to have any official knowledge of Newman's views about
Christianity derived from my position as a Professor, I should have thrown
up my situation long ago." And Mr. de Morgan adds: "This had reference to
the absolute agnosis on religious views which was the banner U.C. nailed
to the mast in old days." He says he remembers, in his boyhood, that there
were many religious discussions between his parents and Francis Newman,
but that he was far too young to understand what they were about then, and
remembers them consequently but vaguely.
"When I came to see more of Newman as a Professor in class, I had arrived
at the condition of a pert and very foolish boy of sixteen who had made up
his mind to be an artist and failed altogether to take advantage of the
splendid opportunities before him. I attended Newman's classes; saw him
every day; might have acquired the knowledge of much of the Latin
classics. Somehow I missed my chances, and I cannot now recall a single
instance of my availing myself of the interviews he accorded so gladly to
any attentive student to get at difficult passages, and so on. In my time
I suspect his classes included a larger number than usual of bad and idle
young scaramouches, who deserved to be turned out of the class, instead of
the sort of over-forbearance their Professor showed. I feel sure now that
a more truculent character than his would have enforced order better, with
advantage to the weak and wavering pupils. He treated boys too much like
human creatures--and some of us were as mischievous as monkeys. I
recollect a particular instance illustrating this fact and his
forbearance.
"The weather was bad, and bad colds abounded. One day Newman ventured to
remonstrate gently with the victims of catarrh--indeed, the noise was
awful. But he had the indiscretion to add: 'Gentlemen, if you cannot wipe
your noses, I must really ask you to blow them outside the door.' Of
course the results were awful! The young imps rushed out incessantly into
the passage, and made noises like motor-cars. If the Professor committed
an error of judgment in his first edict, he certainly made up for it by
the way he kept his temper. In this he was really perfect. But the boys
presumed on it, of course. I remember that one of them, instead of
attending to his _Juvenal_, wrote a long poem about this nose incident,
which passed from hand to hand.
"There was another incident about that time which I fancy others may
remember better than I. It was snow time, and the schoolboys in the
playground were pelting papers in the college precinct. Newman passed by,
and a heavy volley all but destroyed his umbrella, which he used as a
shield. A few days after he came into the Common Room with a new umbrella.
'See what a beautiful present I've had,' he said, 'from my young friends
across the railings.' I have an impression that it was a guinea umbrella
bought with penny subscriptions; but this may be another story that has
got mixed with it."
Sir Edward Fry writes, in response to a request from me for his
recollections of Newman:--
"I attended Professor Newman's senior class on Latin literature for two or
three sessions in 1848, and I have a very vivid remembrance of him; at
that time he had not assumed a beard, and his clean-cut features were not
obscured by hair, as in later life. His lectures were very interesting and
stimulating. If I may venture to express an opinion on the point, I should
describe him as a very brilliant scholar, with a tendency towards
eccentricity.
"We read whilst I was with him some three or four of the early works of
Livy, and some of the histories of Tacitus; and his expansion of the
Constitution of Rome, both at the early and later date, was of very
unusual excellence. Such was my memory, and this has been confirmed by a
reference to my notebooks which I have made in consequence of your note. I
think his estimate of character did not always agree with that of Tacitus.
Other subjects which I recollect as having been expounded were the
relation of Latin to the Celtic group of languages, and that everlasting
question, the relation of the Etruscans and the Pelasgi.
"Once a week Newman used to give out a piece of English prose to be
rendered into Latin; these he corrected, reading also to us his own
version. Since your note I have looked at such notes of his lectures as I
can find, and at his corrections of my Latin prose."
Mr. Talfourd Ely, writing on Francis Newman as a teacher, says "he was
most careful and conscientious in his work. He was refined and even
fastidious in literary taste. To the ordinary undergraduate, such as
myself, he seemed too little like other men. We did not understand his
genius, and were too apt to judge him by peculiarities of garb and speech.
Like many other scholars, he could hardly keep in touch with young
athletes, and probably did not care to do so. But personally I was greatly
indebted to him, and I can never forget his generous help and kindly
thoughtfulness."
Mr. Winterbotham, also pupil of Francis Newman, says:--
"I was more keen on mathematics than classics, and was not what he would
have considered a promising pupil. My brother Edward, who was a year my
senior, was not much better.... My recollections are confined to the
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