Chapter VII: Part 7

To return to the first edition. I had only five hundred copies printed; but at the end of two years when I had gathered material enough for a second edition, there was still a hundred or so of these on hand. All the same I did not feel any serious misgiving. I caused a thousand copies to be printed of the second edition (260 pp.), sent them round to the Press again, and waited. This was in 1885. If anything the reception accorded was worse than before—in a sense worse—because there was more of it! By 1892—when I needed to print a third edition—only some seven hundred copies of the second edition had gone. Seven hundred in seven years! The prospects were not good, yet I did not feel depressed. I had certainly not expected any great sale; and there were even signs of improvement. My _other_ books were beginning to attract a little attention. It was obviously also hard on this book to have it published in Manchester. So I determined to go to London. There was no possible chance of getting a publisher there to take it as his own speculation; so I went to Mr. Fisher Unwin and asked him to print at my expense and sell it on commission—which he naturally was quite willing to do! The book had now grown to 368 pp., and its price had to be raised from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d.; but its sales actually improved, and for two or three years ranged at about two hundred copies a year. I began to think it was just possible that my little bark would navigate itself, that it would float out on deeper waters and into the world-current; when something disastrous happened which left it in the shallows for quite a few years longer.

That something was the Oscar Wilde trial or trials, which took place in the spring of 1895; but to understand how they affected _Towards Democracy_ I must go back a little. Early in 1894 I started writing a series of pamphlets on sex-questions—those questions which at that time were generally tabooed and practically not discussed at all, though they now have become almost an obsession of the public mind. As pamphlets of that kind would have no chance with the ordinary publishers, I got them printed and issued by the Manchester Labour Press—a little association for the spread of Socialist literature, on the committee of which I was. The pamphlets were _Sex-love_, _Woman_, and _Marriage_; and they sold pretty well—three or four thousand copies each. Encouraged by their success I began early in ’95 to put them together, and add fresh matter to them, till I had a book ready for publication—which I afterwards entitled _Love’s Coming-of-Age_. This book I offered to Fisher Unwin (as he was already selling _Towards Democracy_) and he accepted it—undertaking to produce the book himself and give me a fair Royalty. His Agreement was signed in June 1895.

Meanwhile, in January 1895 (though dated 1894) I issued from the Labour Press, and in the same connection as the other pamphlets, a fourth one, entitled _Homogenic Love_—which I suppose was among the first attempts in this country to deal at all publicly with the problems of the Intermediate Sex. I placed “printed for private circulation only” on the Title-page, and had only a comparatively small number of copies struck off—which were not sold but sent round pretty freely to those who I thought would be interested in the subject or able to contribute views or information upon it. My object in fact was to get in touch with others and to obtain material for future study or publication. Even in this quiet way the pamphlet created some alarm—and in the dove-cotes of Fleet Street (as I heard) caused no little fluttering and agitation; but it is quite possible the matter would have ended there, if it had not been for the Oscar Wilde troubles. Wilde was arrested in April 1895 and from that moment a sheer panic prevailed over _all_ questions of sex, and especially of course questions of the Intermediate Sex.

I did not include _Homogenic Love_ in my proposed new book, nor had I any intention of including it; but when the mere existence of the thing came to the knowledge of Fisher Unwin he was so perturbed that he actually cancelled his Agreement with me, with regard to the book _Love’s Coming-of-Age_, and broke loose from it. It was in vain that I tried to restrain him. He had got his leg over the trace, as it were, and was ‘off.’ Indeed, he was quite willing to sacrifice the expense he had already incurred (for the book was now partly set up) rather than go on with it. Under the circumstances I could not, of course, very well compel him to publish. Moreover I felt sorry for his perturbation, and quite understood some of its causes. The extent of it was finally shown by his going so far as to turn _Towards Democracy_ out of his shop, and refuse to publish _that_ any longer!

Thus my two books _Love’s Coming-of-Age_ and _Towards Democracy_—like two poor little orphans—were both out on the wide world again.

For the moment I will go on with _Love’s Coming-of-Age_. Being routed by Fisher Unwin, I went to Sonnenschein, Bertram Dobell, and others—altogether five or six publishers—but they all shook their heads. The Wilde trial had done its work; and silence must henceforth reign on sex-subjects.[19] There was nothing left for me but to return to my little Labour Press at Manchester, and get the book printed and published from there—which I did, the first edition being issued in 1896.

It is curious to think that that was not twenty years ago, and what a landslide has occurred since then! In ’96 no ‘respectable’ publisher would touch the volume, and yet to-day [1915] the tide of such literature has flowed so full and fast that my book has already become quite a little old-fashioned and demure! But the severe resistance and rigidity of public opinion at the time made the volume very difficult to write. The readiness, the absolute determination of people to _misunderstand_ if they possibly could, rendered it very difficult to guard against misunderstandings, and as a matter of fact nearly every chapter in the book was written four or five times over before I was satisfied with it.

_Love’s Coming-of-Age_ ought of course (like some parts of _England’s Ideal_) to have been written by a woman; but, though I tried, I could not get any of my women-friends to take the subject up, and so had to deal with it myself. Ellen Key, in Sweden, began—I fancy about the same period—writing that fine series of books on _Love_, _Marriage_, _Childhood_, and so forth, which have done so much to illuminate the Western World; but at that time I knew nothing of her and her work.

My book circulated almost immediately to some extent in the Socialistic world, where my name was fairly well known; but some time elapsed before it penetrated into more literary and more ‘respectable’ circles. One of the first signs of its succeeding in the latter direction took a rather amusing shape. I had, one day, to call upon a well-known London publisher (who was already publishing some of my books, though he had refused this particular one) on business, and having discussed the matters immediately in hand, he presently turned to me and inquired how my _Love’s Coming-of-Age_ was selling. I of course gave a fairly favorable account. “I think,” said he in a somewhat chastened tone “that perhaps we made rather a mistake in refusing some little time back to take it up. A Sunday or two ago I was at church [probably a Congregational or Unitarian Chapel], and the minister quoted a page or two from your book, and spoke very highly of it, and actually gave the published address and price, and all; and I saw quite a lot of people noting the references down.” He paused, and then added, “Quite a good advertisement—worth thirty or forty copies I daresay.” I could not help smiling. No wonder he was sorry! But the story gave promise of better things to come.

In 1902 the said publishing firm was glad to tale the book up and publish it on commission for me—which they (and their successors) have done ever since. And its sale in England (though not phenomenal like that of the German translation) has, I must say, been very good.

To return to _Towards Democracy_. Considering its expulsion from Mr. Fisher Unwin’s shop and the generally panicky condition of the book market in London, there seemed nothing to do but to return to Manchester and place it also in the hands of the little Labour Press for publication. The two thousand or so copies remaining in Unwin’s hands were my property, and I had only to remove them to Manchester, get a new title-page printed, and have them issued from there. This I accordingly did, and in ’96 the Labour Press edition appeared—368 pp., the same as Fisher Unwin’s. Naturally the Labour Press connection was not very favorable as regards circulation, and the price (3s. 6d.) was high for Socialist and Labour circles. The spread of the book remained slow—slower of course than it had been with Unwin, and hardly amounted to a hundred copies a year.

This was bad; but worse remained behind. Somewhere early in 1901 the Labour Press—whose financial affairs had never been very satisfactory—went bankrupt! I knew of course what was pending; and as the stock of _Towards Democracy_ belonged to _me_, and I knew that if left at the Press it would be in danger of falling into the creditors’ hands, there was nothing left but to smuggle it away as soon as I could into some place of safe keeping. Mr. James Johnston, City Councillor, always a good friend, came to the rescue and offered me storage room in his office. I hired a dray. And so one foggy day, with a good part of a ton of _Towards Democracy_ on board—which I helped to load and unload—I jogged with the drayman through the streets of Manchester amid the huge turmoil of the cotton goods and other traffic. A strange load—and I never before realized how heavy the book was!

It lay there for some months, and then about July of the same year I made arrangements with Sonnenschein & Co. for them to sell the book on commission, and the stock was transferred into their hands. From that time its sales slowly went forward—from a hundred or a hundred and fifty per annum in 1902, to eight hundred or nine hundred in 1910, when the Sonnenschein business, and with it my book, passed into the hands of George Allen & Co. In 1902 the fourth part of _Towards Democracy_, i.e. “Who shall command the Heart” was published; and in 1905 this was incorporated with the three former parts in one complete volume. Later in the same year I succeeded (a long cherished project) in producing a pocket edition of the whole on India paper, which has ever since sold alongside and _pari passu_ with the Library edition. Thus after twenty-one years (in 1902) these writings (begun in 1881) came to an end; and three years later the book took its definite and permanent form in print and binding, and some sort of rather indefinite place in the world of letters.

Talking about their place in the world of letters, some of my books have, I fear, puzzled the public by their titles. _Ioläus_ has been much of an offender in this way. The uncertainty as to who or what Ioläus might be, the difficulty of knowing how to spell the word, and the impossibility of pronouncing it, proved at one time such obstacles that they quite adversely affected the sales. On one occasion I received a telegram from a firm asking me to send at once two hundred Oil-cans. My puzzlement was great, as I had indeed never embarked in the oil trade, nor in my wildest dreams thought of doing so—till suddenly it flashed upon me that the message, having had to pass through a rustic post-office, had been transformed on the way, and that the romantic friend and companion of Hercules had been turned into a paraffin tin! After that I modified the title so as to avoid any such sacrilege in the future.

Coming back to _Towards Democracy_ again, I do not know that I have ever seen a very serious estimate or criticism of that book in any well-known literary paper. Like others of my works it has come into the literary sheep-fold not through the accepted gate but “some other way, like a thief or a robber.” It has been generally ignored—as already explained—by the guardians of the gate, yet it has quietly and decisively established itself, and the ‘sheep’ somehow have taken kindly to the ‘robber.’ And perhaps the matter is best so. A book of that kind is not easy to criticize; it cannot be dispatched by a snap phrase; it does not belong to any distinct class or school; its form is open to question; its message is at once too simple and too intricate for public elucidation—even if really understood by the interpreter. That it should go its own way quietly, neither applauded by the crowd, nor barked at by the dogs, but knocking softly here and there at a door and finding friendly hospitality—is surely its most gracious and satisfying destiny.

But though the ignoring by the critics of _Towards Democracy_ has seemed natural and proper, I confess I have been somewhat surprised by their non-recognition or non-discussion of the questions dealt with in the other books; because, as I have said these books are on a different plane from _Towards Democracy_. They deal with theories or views which flow (as I think) perfectly logically from the central idea of _Towards Democracy_—just as the different views or aspects of a mountain flow perfectly logically from the mountain-fact itself. We cannot discuss the central idea, but we can discuss the aspects, because they come within the range of intellectual apprehension and definition. If the world—it seems to me—should ever seize the central fact of such books as _Leaves of Grass_ and _Towards Democracy_, it must inevitably formulate new views of life on almost every conceivable subject: the aspects of all life will be changed. And the discussion and definition of these views ought to be extraordinarily interesting. It is therefore surprising I say that no serious discussion of the underlying or implicit assumptions of these two books has yet taken place. It is true, of course, that to-day the world is witnessing a strange change of attitude on almost all questions, and a vague feeling after the new aspects to which I am alluding; but it does not concatenate these views on to any central fact, and therefore cannot deal with them adequately or effectively. It is as if people, having taken drawings of a hitherto undiscovered mountain from many different sides, and comparing them together, should not realize that it is the _same_ mountain which they have been observing all the time, and that there _is_ a unity and a reality there which will explain and concatenate all the outlines. I say it is a little disappointing that this point has not yet been reached, because it would make the discussion and definition of the new views so wonderfully interesting. On the other hand it is obvious that in the midst of the enormous output and rush of modern literature, critics generally have thrown up the sponge, and are content to get through their work perfunctorily or as best they can, without the added labour of tackling, or attempting to tackle, a great new synthesis.

The attempt made a quarter of a century ago—in _Civilization: its Cause and Cure_—to define the characteristics of (modern) civilization, and to show the civilization-period as a distinct stage in social evolution, destined to pass away and to be succeeded by a later stage—of which later stage even now some of the features may be indicated—has never as far as I know been seriously taken up and worked out. The Socialists of course have certain views on the subject, but they are limited to the economic field, and do not by any means cover the whole ground; and various doctrinaire sets and sects are nibbling at the problem from different sides; but a real statement and investigation of the whole question, and a linking of it up to deepest spiritual facts, would obviously be absorbingly interesting. I first read the paper which bears the above name at the Fabian Society (? in 1888), and, needless to say, it was jeered at on all sides; but since then, somehow, a change has come, and even Sidney Webb and Bernard Shaw, who most attacked me at the time, have ceased to use the word ‘Civilization’ in its old optimistic and mid-Victorian sense. What we want now is a real summing-up and settling of what the word connotes—both from the historical point of view, and with regard to the future.

Another paper in the same book, which shocked a good many of my Cambridge friends, was my “Criticism of Modern Science.” The Victorian age glorified modern Science—not only in respect of its patient and assiduous observation of facts, which every one allows, but also on account of the supposed Laws of Nature which it had discovered, and which were accounted immutable and everlasting. A light arising from some quite other source convinced me that this infallibility of the scientific “Laws” was an entire illusion. I had been brought up on mathematics and physical science. I had lectured for years on the latter. But now the reaction set in; and—rather rudely and crudely it must be confessed—I turned on my old teacher to rend her! I published in 1885, and in Manchester, a shilling pamphlet called _Modern Science: A Criticism_, and sent it round to my mathematical and scientific friends. I think most of them thought I had gone daft! But, after all, the whirligig of Time has brought its revenge, and the inevitable evolution of human thought has done its work; and now, one may ask, where _are_ the airy fairy laws and theories of the Science of the last century? The great stores of observations and facts are certainly there, and so are the marvellous applications of these things to practical life—but where are the immutable Laws?—where are the clean-cut systems of the families and species of plants and animals? where is Boyle’s law of gases? where the stability of the planetary orbits? where the permanence and indestructibility of the atom? where is the theory of gravitation, where the theory of light, the theory of electricity? the law of supply and demand in Political Economy, of Natural Selection in Biology? of the fixity of the Elements in Chemistry, or the succession of the strata in Geology? All gone into the melting-pot—and quickly losing their outlines!

It is true that in the great brew which is being thus formed, rags and chunks of the old “Laws of Nature” are still discernible; but no one supposes they are there for long, and on all sides it is obvious that the scientific world is giving up the search for them, and the expectation (in the face of such things as radium, Hertzian waves, Karyokinesis and so forth) of ever reconstituting Science again on the old Victorian basis. These fixed ‘Laws,’ it is pretty evident, and their remaining débris, will melt away, till out of the seething brew something entirely different and unexpected emerges. And that will be?... Yes, what indeed out of such a Cauldron _might_ be expected to emerge—a strange and wonderful Figure, a living Form!

Yet the curious thing is that while this process of the dissolution of scientific theory is going on before our eyes, and on all sides, no one seems to be aware of it—at any rate no one sums it up, gives it outline and definition, or tackles its meaning and result. Tolstoy was pleased with the attacks on Modern Science contained in _Civilization: its Cause and Cure_, wrote to me about it, and had the chapter printed in Russian, with a preface by himself. But his point of view was that Science being a serious enemy to Religion anything which bombarded and crippled Science would help to free Religion. That was not my point of view. I do not regard Science—or rather Intellectualism—as the foe of Religion, but more as a stage which _has to be passed through_ on the way to a higher order of perception or consciousness—which might possibly be termed Religion—only the word religion is too vague to be very applicable here.

Another airy castle which is obviously fading away before our eyes is that of the “Laws” of Morality. The whole structure of civilization-morality is being rapidly undermined. The moral aspects of Property, Commerce, Class-relations, Sex-relations, Marriage, Patriotism, and so forth, are shifting like dissolving views. Nietzsche has scorched up the old Christian altruism; Bernard Shaw has burned the Decalogue. Yet (in this country and according to our custom) we jog along and pretend not to see what is happening. No body of people faces out the situation, or attempts to foretell its future. The Ethical society professes to substitute Ethics for Religion, as a basis of social life; yet never once has it informed us what it means by Ethics! The Law courts go mumbling on over ancient measures of right and wrong which the man in the street has long ago discarded. Much less has any group attempted to foreshadow the new Morality, and concatenate it on to the great root-fact of existence. In my “Defence of Criminals: a Criticism of Morality,”[20] I gave an outline and an indication of what was happening, and of the way out into the future; but that paper, as far as I know, has never been seriously discussed.

Nevertheless under the surface new ideas are forming, the lines of the coming life are spreading. The book _Civilization_—first published by Sonnenschein, in 1889—has had a good circulation, and been translated into many languages. Though somewhat hastily and crudely put together, yet owing to a certain _élan_ about it, and probably largely owing to the fact that it gives expression to the main issues above-mentioned, it has been well received.

One idea, which runs all through the book—namely, that of there being three great stages of Consciousness: the simple consciousness (of the animal or of primitive man), the self-consciousness (of the civilized or intellectual man), and the mass-consciousness or cosmic consciousness of the coming man, is only roughly sketched there, but is developed more fully in _The Art of Creation_. It is of course deeply germane to _Towards Democracy_. And though we may not yet be in a position to define the conception very exactly, still it is quite evident, I think, that some such evolution into a further order of consciousness is the key to the future, and that many æons to come (of human progress) will be ruled by it. Dr. Richard Bucke, by the publication (in 1901) of his book _Cosmic Consciousness_ made a great contribution to the cause of humanity. The book was a bit casual, hurried, doctrinaire, un-literary, and so forth, but it brought together a mass of material, and did the inestimable service of being the first to systematically consider and analyse the subject. Strangely here again we find that his book—though always spreading and circulating about the world, beneath the surface—has elicited no serious recognition or response from the accredited authorities, philosophers, psychologists, and so forth; and the subject with which it deals is in such circles practically ignored—though in comparatively unknown coteries it may be warmly discussed. So the world goes on—the real expanding vital forces being always beneath the surface and hidden, as in a bud, while the accepted forms and conclusions are little more than a vari-coloured husk, waiting to be thrown off.

Relating itself closely and logically with the idea (1) of the three stages of Consciousness is that (2) of the Berkeleyan view of matter—the idea that matter in itself is an illusion, being only a film between soul and soul: _called_ matter when the film is opaque to the perceiving soul, but called mind when the latter sees through to the intelligence behind it. And these stages again relate logically to the idea (3) of the Universal or Omnipresent Self. The _Art of Creation_ was written to give expression to these three ideas and the natural deductions from them.

The doctrine of the Universal Self is obviously fundamental; and it is clear that once taken hold of and adopted it must inevitably revolutionize all our views of Morality—since current morality is founded on the separation of self from self; and must revolutionize too all our views of Science. Such matters as the Transmutation of Chemical Elements, the variation of biological Species, the unity of Health, the unity of Disease, our views of Political Economy and Psychology; Production for Use instead of for Profit, Communism, Telepathy; the relation between Psychology and Physiology, and so forth, must take on quite a new complexion when the idea which lies at the root of them is seized. This idea must enable us to understand the continuity of Man with the Protozoa, the relation of the physiological centres, on the one hand to the individual Man and on the other to the Race from which he springs, the meaning of Reincarnation, and the physical conditions of its occurrence. It must have eminently practical applications; as in the bringing of the Races of the world together, the gradual evolution of a Non-governmental form of Society, the Communalization of Land and Capital, the freeing of Woman to equality with Man, the extension of the monogamic Marriage into some kind of group-alliance, the restoration and full recognition of the heroic friendships of Greek and primitive times; and again in the sturdy Simplification and debarrassment of daily life by the removal of those things which stand between us and Nature, between ourselves and our fellows—by plain living, friendship with the Animals, open-air habits, fruitarian food, and such degree of Nudity as we can reasonably attain to.

These mental and social changes and movements and many others which are all around us waiting for recognition, will clearly, when they ripen, constitute a revolution in human life deeper and more far-reaching than any which we know of belonging to historical times. Even any _one_ of them, worked out practically, would be fatal to most of our existing institutions. Together they would form a revolution so great that to call it a mere extension or outgrowth of Civilization would be quite inadequate. Rather we must look upon them as the preparation for a stage entirely different from and beyond Civilization. To tackle these things in advance, to prepare for them, study them, understand them is clearly absolutely necessary. It is a duty which—however burked or ignored for a time—will soon be forced upon us by the march of events. And it is a duty which cannot effectively be fulfilled piecemeal, but only by regarding all these separate movements of the human mind, and of society, as part and parcel of one great underlying movement—one great new disclosure of the human Soul.

Self in Porch

1905
]

My little covey of books, dating from _Towards Democracy_, has been hatched mainly for the purpose of giving expression to these and other various questions which—raised in my mind by the writing of _Towards Democracy_—demanded clearer statement than they could find there. _Towards Democracy_ came first, as a Vision, so to speak, and a revelation—as a great body of feeling and intuition which I _had_ to put into words as best I could. It carried with it—as a flood carries trees and rocks from the mountains where it originates—all sorts of assumptions and conclusions. Afterwards—for my own satisfaction as much as for the sake of others—I had to examine and define these assumptions and conclusions.

That was the origin of my prose writings—most of them—of _England’s Ideal_, _Civilization_, _The Art of Creation_, _Love’s Coming-of-Age_, _The Intermediate Sex_, _The Drama of Love and Death_, _Angels’ Wings_, _Non-governmental Society_,[21] _A Visit to a Gñani_,[22] and so forth. They, like the questions they deal with, have led a curious underground life in the literary world, spreading widely as a matter of fact, yet not on the surface. Like old moles they have worked away unseen and unobserved, yet in such a manner as to throw up heaps here and there and in the most unlikely places, and bring back friends to me on all sides—lovely and beautiful friends for whom I cannot sufficiently thank them.

XII
PERSONALITIES—I

It is curious that, with my somewhat antinomian tendencies, I should have gone to Trinity Hall—which was, and is, before all a Law College—and should thus have been thrown into close touch with the _legal_ element in life. As an undergraduate, whose days were consumed in boating and mathematics, this was not noticeable; but it was not entirely after my heart when I became a Fellow, to find myself in a society which was almost wholly composed of barristers; and in after life to discover that my friends of early days had nearly all become eminent K.C.’s and Judges!

Just before my entering Trinity Hall, an undergraduate of that College, Robert Romer, had become Senior Wrangler—and I really believe this had something to do with my selecting the College for myself. The ‘Hall’ men were hugely delighted, as this distinction in the Tripos had never come to the College before—the more so, because Romer was a boating man and rowed in the First Boat; and a myth grew up (possibly encouraged by the subject himself, and in order to show how easily a real boating man can do anything he turns himself to!) that he passed his examinations by the light of nature, and never needed to ‘swot’ like an ordinary mortal. Others however said—and this was a more likely explanation—that he used to sit at his study table with a pot of beer and a sporting journal before him, while in the open drawer of the table lay his mathematical books and papers. When a knock came at the door it was the simplest thing in the world to close the drawer, and be found consuming his ale! After his degree he remained at Cambridge for a time as mathematical coach, but was by no means a success in that line. He could not sympathize with a learner’s difficulties; and when a pupil came to him with a problem which he could not understand, Romer would say “What? You can’t understand that? You can’t understand that?—then God help you, I can’t!” Naturally he soon gave up teaching and took to the Bar. After _my_ degree—when we were Fellows of the College together—I saw quite a little of him: a rough, muscular-brained, “damn-your-eyes” type of man, and as may be imagined quite ignorant of art and literature, but good-natured and healthy. Later however the sheer physical force of his mentality took him to the highest reaches of the legal profession (Lord Justice of Appeal) and he passed out of my sphere.

Another Senior Wrangler whom I knew fairly well, as he headed the Tripos in my own year (1868), and who afterwards became Lord Justice (in the Court of Patents) was J. Fletcher Moulton. He was one of those people who without any great depth of intellect or even of character possessed an extraordinary rapidity of mind. His information was encyclopædic, and in examinations he threw off his papers with the airy ease of a tree throwing off its dead leaves in autumn; to the wonderment indeed both of examiners and fellow-students. Yet I am not aware that he ever contributed anything very original in the study of mathematics or law—or in any other department of human thought.

Great success in examinations does naturally not as a rule go with originality of thought. W. K. Clifford who had undoubtedly one of the finest mathematical, scientific, and philosophical minds of the period of which I am speaking was only Second Wrangler; and my friend Robert F. Muirhead who, as Smith’s Prizeman and later, has contributed important papers on mathematical subjects, was nowhere to speak of in his Tripos. One could hardly of course expect that originality and the pigeon-hole mind should go together.

To return to our Judges. That men like Romer and Moulton should attain the highest places in their profession is natural; but I confess I have been surprised (having known them so well in boating days) at the kind of men who are commonly made High Court or County Court Judges. I will not mention names (!)—but here is one, for instance, who was Captain of the boat-club in my time—a physically powerful, but mentally quite muddle-headed person; here is another, whose _forte_ was _boxing_ (no harm in that, but one might have wished that he had other interests besides)—a rather brutish and decidedly illiterate type; a third, whose constitution, both physical and mental, was feeble, but who had powerful relatives in the legal profession. All these were of the kind that have considerable difficulty in passing their elementary examinations. And there were many more of the same kind. Nevertheless, having once got their feet on the ladder, they have slowly and gradually—by family influence or sheer physical health (an important thing)—climbed nearly to the top. No blame to them, certainly; but one cannot help asking—and I put the question especially to Labour M.P.’s: Are these the sort of men we really require for such posts? Let alone their want of bookish culture—which perhaps does not so much matter—we cannot but ask: What do men of this class—who have been brought up at a public school, who have worked hard at boating or cricket at the University, who afterwards have buried themselves in law-chambers and the purlieus of the Courts—and whose acquaintance with manual workers is pretty well confined to ‘scouts’ and ‘gyps’ and an occasional gamekeeper in the country—what do they know about the great mass-people on whom they have to sit in judgment, about the habits and temperament and customs of life of the latter? and how on earth are they qualified to bring order and good sense and real sympathy and understanding into that most important branch of public life—the administration of the law? These are indeed questions to which serious answers will have to be given ere long.

I have already mentioned Henry Fawcett (afterwards Postmaster-General) who was a Fellow of Trinity Hall at the time of which I am speaking. The story of his blindness is well known. It was only just after his degree that he was out pheasant-shooting with his father. In a rather thick covert the father fired at a bird, unknowing that his son was standing in the line of fire. Two small shot struck the latter—one entering into each eye—a strange and fatal chance. It was the father, I think, who told me that as soon as Henry knew that he was permanently blinded he said “Well, it shan’t make any difference in my plans of life!” And certainly it made very little. As may be guessed from that, Fawcett was a man of astounding pluck and vitality—a vitality which would have been almost overbearing if it had not been tempered by extreme good nature—and his force of character, combined with very democratic sympathies, enabled him despite his blindness to do valuable work in Parliament and in connection with the Post Office. The adoring gratitude of the father at the public success of the son whom he had so badly crippled was most touching, and he would follow his son about the country and attend his public meetings for the mere pleasure of witnessing his success. As Fawcett was member for Brighton—and my father lent his support to his candidature—he, and Mrs. Fawcett, used frequently to dine with us at Brunswick Square, and I saw a good deal of them both at Brighton and at Cambridge. Fawcett’s pluck and vitality were however sometimes a trial to his friends. I have a rather _too_ vivid recollection of riding with him, over the Brighton Downs or along the green lanes of Cambridgeshire. “Carpenter,” he would say, “this is a nice piece of grass, isn’t it? Let’s have a canter.” Then he would set off at an amazing rate, and I would have to keep close alongside of him, with a sharp look-out and warning for unexpected ditches and stoneheaps, and in momentary fear of a headlong fall—which for a man of his weight would have been a terrible thing! Or he would insist on my coming to skate with him, in winter, on the Cam. We would go five or six miles down the river, and back—he holding one end of a stick and I the other. That was all very well if the ice was sound, but every one knows what river ice is; and I have often skated with him when I, being a light weight, passed over easily, while he, holding on to the stick and a pace or two behind, was cracking through at every other step. The prospect of having to fish a public man, weighty in every sense, out of a flowing river was certainly not pleasant. However I am happy to say that I was not present with him at any disaster. Except once. That was at a public meeting when he was speaking, at Brighton. I was on the platform. A stone was thrown by some one at the back of the hall, which struck him on the forehead, causing blood to flow. Great sensation ensued. For the moment he felt a little faint and relapsed into a chair. Ladies rushed up on all sides with smelling salts. However in a few minutes he was all right, and resumed his speech. Afterwards he said to me “I didn’t mind the stone; but those scent-bottles made me sick!” So it will be seen that he and I had points in common! Since his death Mrs. Fawcett and I have still met not unfrequently—generally perhaps as joint speakers on some Women’s Suffrage platform.

Charles Wentworth Dilke was a ‘Hall’ man. He had just taken his degree when I arrived as a ‘freshman’; but he stayed up in College for a year or so more on account of some law-examination or other. He never became a Fellow, but was an enthusiastic lover of his College; and was always very good to us undergraduates. I remember breakfasting with him at his rooms, and his showing me, pencilled on his door-jamb, the record of his hours of work, day by day, for the last year or so—_seventy hours per week_, as regular as clockwork! He was, then and afterwards, always an amazing worker—his room even in those youthful days pigeon-holed all over with notes and documents. He was also a man with a high sense of chivalry and honour, and I have no doubt that the _contretemps_ which threw him for a time out of public life—and which his chivalry forbade him to explain—weighed pretty heavily on him. His love of facts and statistics, so conspicuous throughout his political life, was shared by his brother Assheton; and it used to be said that the two brothers never enjoyed themselves more thoroughly than when sitting knee to knee they spent an hour or so in ‘imparting facts to each other’!

Another politician of my time, though a little younger than myself, was Augustine Birrell. Even in those days he was chiefly known for his quaint humours and jokes—though the term ‘birrelling’ had not then been adopted. But being, as an undergraduate, somewhat interested in politics and not at all interested in rowing, he did not bulk largely in the eyes of his contemporaries, and I fear was a little neglected. In a late letter to me he chaffs me in his own native style on my academic and clerical past, saying “I have the most vivid recollection of you as Junior Tutor. The marvellous neatness of your now discarded _white tie_ lives especially in my untidy mind!”

Socialism and Millthorpe, I need hardly say, swept me out of these academic and semi-political surroundings into a different world—the world of a new society which was arising and forming within the structure of the old. William Morris represented this new society more effectively and vitally than any one else of that period; because away and beyond the scientific forecast he gave expression to the emotional presentment and ideal of a sensible free human brotherhood—as in _John Ball_, or _News from Nowhere_. His sturdy, brusque, sea-captain-like figure, with his fine-outlined face and tossing hair, his forcible unpolished speech, yet all so direct, sincere, enthusiastic—brought inspiration and confidence wherever he went; and for a time, as I have already said, there was a widespread belief that the Socialist League was going to knit up all the United Kingdom in one bond of new life.[23] Having set the “Sheffield Socialists” going in ’86, he came one day not long after to speak at Chesterfield, and stayed at Millthorpe a night or two. I remember his arriving from the train with Jefferies’ book _After London_ in his hands—which had just come out. The book delighted him with its prophecy of an utterly ruined and deserted London, gone down in swamps and malaria, with brambles and weeds spreading through slum streets and fashionable squares, and pet dogs reverting to wolfish and carrion-hunting lives. And he read page after page of it to us with glee that evening as we sat round the fire. He hated modern civilization, and London as its representative, with a fierce hatred—its shams, its hypocrisies, its stuffy indoor life, its cheapjack style, its mean and mongrel ideals; with a hatred indeed which, I cannot but think, thousands and hundreds of thousands following him will one day share. Once he said to me, talking about his own life: “I have spent, I know, a vast amount of time designing furniture and wall-papers, carpets and curtains; but after all I am inclined to think that sort of thing is mostly rubbish, and I would prefer for my part to live with the plainest whitewashed walls and wooden chairs and tables.” He certainly was no drawing-room sort of man. His immense energy did not run to small talk. As a rule in conversation, seized by his subject, and oblivious of the arguments of others, he would jump from his chair and stride up and down the room in ardent monologue—condemning the present or picturing the future or the past. I once asked his daughter, May, what he did in the way of recreation. “My father never takes any recreation,” she said, “he _merely changes his work_.” And so it was. When he had been toiling at Merton Abbey all day, and preaching Socialism at a street corner all the evening, then at night—sick of the ugly life around him—he would come home and dream himself away into the fourteenth century, and for his recreation produce a masterpiece like _John Ball_. Be it said, nevertheless, that he did sometimes relax, and that when in the humour, no one enjoyed a pipe and a glass and the jovial company of friends and the telling of good stories, more than William Morris.

He certainly did not like anything resembling sentimentality. A friend tells me that he used to recite the following stanza, apparently delighting in its quaintness—but whether Morris composed it himself or had found it elsewhere he does not know:—

I sits with my feet in a brook,
And if any one asks me for why,
I hits him a crack with my crock,
For it’s sentiment kills me, says I.

Among those who came from time to time to speak for our Socialist group in Sheffield or to stay at our “Commonwealth” Café were, besides William Morris, two notable personalities—Peter Kropotkin and Annie Besant. Their work and influence, both world-wide—the one in the Anarchist, and the other in the Theosophist, field—have been really important. Though never myself strictly identified with either of these movements I have been in touch with them, and consequently in more or less friendly relation with their two leading spirits during a long period—now nearly thirty years. Both characters are certainly remarkable for their vigour, their sincerity, their ability and devotion. Kropotkin at the age of seventy and after fifty years of passionate conflict with ‘government’ and ‘authority’ still retains his sunny and almost childlike temperament and still believes in the speedy oncoming of an age of perfectly voluntary and harmonious co-operation in the human race. Indeed it is mainly due to him that this magnificent dream has spread so far and wide over the world, and has done so much as it has towards its own realization. The dramatic circumstances too of Kropotkin’s own life have greatly helped—his early escapes from prison and from death, his abandonment of a princely inheritance to become the companion and fellow-prisoner of criminals and outcasts, his later life spent in poverty and among obscure circles of enthusiasts—these things combined with encyclopædic knowledge and a high scientific reputation have compelled attention and respect. As in the case of many ardent social reformers, and certainly in the case of most notorious Anarchists, there is a charming naïveté about Kropotkin. It is so easy—if you believe that all human evil is summed up in the one fatal word ‘government’ (or it may be that the word is ‘white-slave-traffic,’ or ‘war,’ or ‘drink,’ or anything else)—to order your life and your theories accordingly. Everything is explained by its relation to one thing. It is easy, but it is misleading. And Kropotkin’s writings, despite their erudition, suffer from this naïveté. Whether it be History (his _French Revolution_), or Natural History (his _Mutual Aid_) or economic theory (his _Paroles d’un Revolté_) the reader finds one solution for everything, and the countervailing facts and principles consistently—though certainly not intentionally—ignored. This detracts from the value of the writings; though in justice it should be said that the principles on which Kropotkin so vigorously insists—i.e. individual liberty and free association—_are_ of foundational importance. In a country like Russia—obsessed by authority and officialism—it is not unnatural that its reformers, such as Tolstoy and Kropotkin, should be almost over-conscious of the governmental evil; and this fact rather encourages the hope that Russia may one day after all be the leader in the great European reaction towards a freer and more voluntary state of society.

The naïveté of the social reformer explains too the common fact that the Anarchist who is in theory “thirsting for the blood of kings” and occasionally perhaps capable of perpetrating a deed of violence himself, is generally (like Kropotkin) the gentlest and mildest of men, who “would not hurt a fly.” It is only such men—having the love of humanity in their hearts—who are able to believe in the speedy realization of an era of universal goodwill; and again it is only such men—being innocent enough to believe that the only impediment to the realization of this era is a certain wicked person in ‘authority’—who can spur themselves on to the bloody dispatch of such person.

If the career of Kropotkin has been romantically varied in one way, that of Mrs. Besant has been equally so in another. To begin as a curate’s wife, with a vivid strain of religious devotion; to break away into Broad Churchism and then into boundless disbelief; to become an ardent Secularist, companion of Bradlaugh and propagandist of antipopulation doctrines; to suffer imprisonment, persecution, and embitterment of spirit; to espouse the cause of Socialism and do battle in the ranks of Labour; to float into the haven of Theosophy and be made the mouthpiece of invisible Mahatmas and of the by no means invisible Mme. Blavatsky; and finally to complete this quaint circle by becoming the high-priestess of a religious movement and the guardian of the herald of the coming Christ—such a career ought to satisfy the most picturesque ambition. Yet it would be unfair to doubt Annie Besant’s sincerity. Having known her so long as I have I feel sure that she has been urged onward from point to point by a perfectly genuine mental evolution, largely directed no doubt at each turn of the road by some dominant mind whom she has met, and largely coloured by that naïveté of which we have already spoken—a naïveté indeed which has made it possible for her to take herself very seriously and to fulfil her adopted rôle always with a strong sense of duty and a comparatively weak perception of the humour of the situation.

From the hour when, alone in the pulpit of her husband’s church, Annie Besant discovered her own great oratorical gift, her future career, one may say, was decided. With an excellent capacity for logical and clear statement she became the exponent in succession of large and important blocks of modern thought. She helped to batter down the ruins and remains of the stupefied old Anglican Church; she gave the general mind a wholesome shock on the Malthusian question; she dotted out clearly the main lines of the Socialist movement; she formed a new channel for religious thought by making the words ‘Karma’ and ‘re-incarnation’ familiar; and she sought to bring the Western public into touch with the great age-long ideas and inspirations of the old Indian sages. In all these ways she has done splendid work, and helped vastly in the construction of that great twentieth century bridge which will in its due time lead us into another world. Only in the last item—her touch upon the ideas and inspirations of the ancient East—does she seem to me, curiously enough, to have failed. With all her enthusiasm for the subject, Mrs. Besant does not appear to have the intuitive perception, the mystic quality of mind, which should enable her to reach the very heart of the old Vedantic teaching. Her intellect, clear and systematic in its structure, has little of the poetic or original or inspirational in its composition, and it may be doubted whether it has ever quite fathomed the religious writings with which it has been so much occupied. Anyhow Mrs. Besant’s own writings on these subjects are—unlike her general lectures—dull to a degree. She analyses the composition of the human personality, or the order of general creation, or the various life-rounds of our mortal race; but in all she seems to be repeating or corroborating some pre-established formula, never to be describing something which she has herself perceived; system and formula prevail, unseen ‘authorities’ are hinted at, the pages bristle with sanskrit jargon, but no living or creative _idea_ moves among them, and the reader rises from their perusal void of inspiration or of any really vital impulse towards new fields of thought and life. Nevertheless, taking it all in all, and especially in her expositions of Socialism and Theosophy, Mrs. Besant has done, as I have said, a great work; and one cannot sufficiently admire the courage with which she has carried it through, as well as her kindliness and helpfulness towards others, and—in later years—her own inner mental calm, contrasting with the somewhat restless bitterness of an earlier time.