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134 XIII

——,

Desiring to approach the subject of miracles, you ask me whether I do not accept the following sentence as a statement of my views concerning nature: "The Universe is perennially renewed and created afresh by an active energy of the Spirit of God, and what we call 'laws of nature' are the mode in which our limited minds are enabled to apprehend the working of Creative Power." If I accept it, you declare you cannot understand why I should stumble at miracles. "It is a matter of every-day experience," you say, "and natural, that the human will should suspend the laws of nature, as for example by arresting the motion of gravitation; and consequently it seems unreasonable for you, or for other believers in a personal God, to be scandalized if He also now and then permits Himself the same liberty."

I accept your statement, so far as concerns the perennial energy of the Spirit of God upon the material and immaterial Universe; but I do not quite agree with the thought, or perhaps I should say with the expression, of the last part of your sentence—"the mode in which our limited minds are enabled to apprehend the working of Creative Power." I should prefer to call the Laws of Nature "a revelation of Himself by God to men, on the recognition of which our very existence depends." The Laws of Nature are indeed nothing but ideas of our own Imagination; but they appear to me, more or less, true


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Letter 13] ideas, through which God has revealed Himself to us as a God of Law and Order. I believe in the fixity of natural Law as much (I think) as the man of science does; I reverence a Law of Nature, not as a result of necessity, but as an expression of God's will. But your own remarks about the ordinary "suspension of the law of nature by the human will" appear to me to imply a little confusion of thought arising from a confused use of the word "nature" in two or more senses. On this point therefore I should like to say a few words.

1. Nature

i. Nature sometimes means the ordinary course of things apart from us and from our intervention; as when we say that "Nature looks gay"—an expression which we might use of fields and even of a not too artificial garden, but not of a city or a street.

In this sense it may be occasionally applied to the ordinary course of things in our own bodily frame, so far as it goes on without our deliberate intervention; as when a physician tells a fussy patient to cease from medicining himself and to "let Nature take its course."

ii. Nature sometimes means the ordinary course of things in ourselves, not in our bodies but in some other part of us, but still apart from our deliberate intervention; as when we say that "Nature impels us to avoid pain, to preserve our lives, to cherish our children, to love and revere our parents, and to seek the esteem and friendship of our neighbours."

But sometimes in human beings one "natural" impulse is opposed by another: as when the desire to preserve one's life is opposed by the desire to gain the esteem of one's neighbours. When these two conflict, which is to be called the more "natural"?

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136 The answer will be different, according as we use the word "natural" in the sense of "ordinary" or "orderly." One class of natural impulses, which may be called selfish or self-regarding, is perhaps more ordinarily predominant; another class, those which regard the good of others, contributes more to the progress and order of society. In the individual, as well as in society, the former or "ordinary" impulses, if unchecked, often tend to excess of passion, and what we call mental "disorder"; the atterlatter [sic] (which are seldom in excess) tend to self-control and a well-ordered mind. In the former sense, it is more "natural," because more "ordinary," to laugh when we are tickled, or to seize food when we are hungry, than to die for our country or to provide food for our children; but, in the latter sense, the nobler actions are more "natural" because more in accordance with order.

What do we mean by a well-ordered mind? We mean one in which the Will does not at once yield to the impulses from the things which seem nearest to ourselves; in which the Imagination vividly presents to us the wants of our neighbours as well as our own; in which the Reason states what can be said for and against each proposal, and the Conscience finally decides the course to be taken. Here then we see an entirely new notion of Nature, at least so far as man is concerned; a course or order of things no longer apart from human intervention, but entirely dependent upon the supremacy of the Will and Conscience aided by Reason and Imagination: and hence we are led to a double definition of human Nature as follows:—

iii. Human Nature means, sometimes the ordinary, sometimes the orderly, course of human things.

Even as to non-human Nature we sometimes find a popular tendency to call, or think, "unnatural," some phenomena which strike us as being contrary to the


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Letter 13] general order and beneficence of things: and hence we are less fond of saying that Nature prompts the cat to torture the mouse or the moth to fly into the flame, than that she implants in the animal race the parental instinct to protect the young. I confess I sympathize with this tendency, and with all those who in their hearts look upon death and pain as being contrary to the ideal order of things and ultimately destined to be destroyed. But for the present, apart from sentiment, let us simply note the fact that in our popular language we sometimes say that it is the nature of a clock to indicate the right time, but sometimes that it is its nature to deviate from the right time: whence we deduce the conclusion that:—

iv. The Nature of a thing means sometimes its object, sometimes its custom.

Laws of Nature

Many of those unbroken sequences of phenomena around us, which have been most frequently observed, have been made the subject of the Imagination and have received an imaginative name. When we find Nature, upon an invariable system, dealing out rewards for one course of action and penalties for another, there is suggested to us the thought of a great Lawgiver laying down laws and affixing rewards for obeying, and penalties for disobeying. Hence the sequences of natural phenomena have been called "Laws of Nature."

Every action of every moment of our lives is performed for the most part in the instinctive and unconscious confidence that Nature will not deceive us by breaking her Laws: and hence they might, from another point of view, be called "Promises of Nature," or "Expressions of the Will of Nature;" but "Law of Nature" has been selected—not perhaps altogether happily—as suggesting


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138 something more fixed and definite than even the Promises or Will of the Maker of the world.

Law of Nature is a metaphorical name for a frequently observed sequence of phenomena (apart from human Will), implying, to some minds, regularity; to others, absolute invariability.

Suspension of Laws of Nature

Does human Will ever suspend a Law of Nature?

I am standing, we will suppose, under a tree in autumn. If a leaf flutters down and rests upon my head, the Law of gravitation is no more suspended by my Will, than if it rests upon some intercepting bough. The result of the Law is modified; downward motion is replaced by downward pressure: but the Law itself is not suspended.

But if, upon the command of a man, the leaf were arrested in mid air and remained immovable for an hour together, and if I were led to the conclusion that this was effected by no force which I could conceive as being consistent with the ordinary course of Nature and with the limitations of human power, then I should be obliged to say that the Law of gravitation, in this particular instance, did not work. Using a metaphor, I might say that the Law was "suspended," and the phenomenon itself I should call a miracle.

In reality the true explanation might be quite different. It is conceivable that an extraordinary man, once in a thousand or once in ten thousand years, might be endowed with the power of arresting the motion of a stone in the air, without the intervention of the body and by the mere exercise of Will; and this might be done by him as easily, as regularly, and (for him) as naturally, as we ordinary men stop a stone in the air by the exercise of Will acting upon our bodily machinery. In that case


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Letter 13] gravitation would still act, pressing the stone, so to speak, upon an invisible hand: and the explanation would be, not that the Law was suspended, but that the results of the Law were uniquely modified by the peculiar action of a unique human nature, in the same way in which they are commonly modified by the regular action of an ordinary human nature. This, I say, is conceivable. Yet if we find (1) in past history, a general tendency to believe in miracles on very slight evidence; (2) in the present time, a general and, as many think, a universal refutation of the evidence on which miracles have been accepted; (3) an increasing power of explaining many so-called miracles in accordance with natural Laws—it becomes our obvious duty to regard miraculous narratives with a very strong suspicion until cogent evidence has been produced for their truth.

The Action of the Will

Hitherto we have been considering the action of the Will upon external Nature; but now what as to the action of our Will upon our own Nature, upon the machinery of our own body? Is that to be called a Law of Nature or a suspension of a Law of Nature?

It is to be called neither. Our definition of "Law of Nature" was "a metaphorical name given to the ordinary course of things apart from the intervention of human will:" consequently the action of human will (about which we are now speaking) is expressly excluded from the province of Nature, in this sense, and can neither be called "a Law of Nature," nor a "suspension of a Law of Nature." The action of the Will falls under the head of "human Nature;" and, discussing it under that head, we may call it by any metaphor we please, a custom, habit, law of human Nature.


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140 This distinction between the name given to the course of non-human Nature and the name given to the action of the human Will on the bodily framework, is based on our distinction between the regular and (if I may use the word) the anticipable sequences of the former, as contrasted with the irregular and unanticipable sequences of the latter. When the Will is undeveloped or enfeebled; when the human being is a baby, or one of an excited and undisciplined crowd, or mad, or drunk, or narcoticized, or mesmerized, or reduced to the bestial level by some overpowering instinct; we can occasionally prophesy his actions or movements with something of the certainty and accuracy with which we predict the motions of a machine: but we cannot thus calculate the actions of a mature, healthy, and reasonable man. Hence it has been usual to contrast with the "Laws of Nature" the "freedom of the human Will." We cannot demonstrate the freedom of the Will any more than the fixity of the Laws of Nature: the belief in both is suggested by Imagination, tested and approved by Experience and Reason, and finally retained by Faith. Of course, when I speak thus, you will not suppose that I assume that my mind, or being, is divided into distinct parts (as the body consists of distinct limbs) called Will, Reason, &c.: you will understand that I merely use the ordinary brief and convenient phraseology which says "The Will does so-and-so," meaning "I do so-and-so with a certain consciousness which appears to me to result from a faculty inherent in me of choosing between two or more courses of action, which faculty I call Will." With this precaution, I assert that the action of the Will is natural as regards human Nature, but outside Nature or "extra-natural" as regards non-human Nature, and that it does not involve the suspension of what are technically called "the Laws of Nature."


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Letter 13] It is thus shewn that the human Will acts directly on the human body in accordance with the Laws of human Nature, and that it does not interfere with the external world except indirectly, through the body, in accordance with the Laws of Nature (as technically defined). There is nothing therefore in the action of the human Will that would justify the a priori inference that the divine Will would, by any direct intervention, disturb or suspend that fixed Order in the external world which constitutes a large part of the revelation of God to mankind.

If indeed we are to draw any kind of parallel between divine and human action, we shall have to ask ourselves what is there appertaining to the divine Spirit which can in any sense be said to correspond to its "Body"? And I suppose we shall reply, in Pauline language, that Mankind, which is said to have Christ for its Head, might be mystically and spiritually called the Body of the divine Will or Holy Spirit. If this be so, proceeding with our parallel, might we not repeat, word for word, with the needful proportionate changes, the language of the last paragraph: "The divine Will or Spirit acts directly on the divine body (that is on mankind) in accordance with the Laws of Spiritual Nature, and it does not interfere with the external world, except indirectly, through mankind, in accordance with the Laws of Nature (as technically defined)"? I do not say that this analogy is logic-proof: for what can be called a "body," or what "external," in relation to the all-pervading God? Nevertheless, as it falls in with our actual experiences, this mystical parallel seems as well worth recording as most a priori notions on this subject, though we take it as no more than an illustration of possibilities. But, if we are to confine ourselves to certainties, the one thing certain is, that Nature, in the fullest sense, human as well as non-human, emphatically discourages us from expecting "miracles."


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 Population.—In population Argentina ranks second among the republics of South America, having outstripped, during the last quarter of the 19th century, the once more populous states of Colombia and Peru. During the first half of the 19th century civil war and despotic government seriously restricted the natural growth of the country, but since the definite organization of the republic in 1860 and the settlement of disturbing political controversies, the population had increased rapidly. Climate and a fertile soil have been important elements in this growth. According to the first national census of 1869 the population was 1,830,214. The census of 1895 increased this total to 3,954,911, exclusive of wild Indians and a percentage for omissions customarily used in South American census returns. In 1904 official estimates, based on immigration and emigration returns and upon registered births and deaths, both of which are admittedly defective, showed a population increased to 5,410,028, and a small diminution in the rate of annual increase from 1895 to 1904 as compared with 1860–1895. The birth-rate is exceptionally high, largely because of the immigrant population, the greater part of which is concentrated in or near the large cities. In the rural districts of the northern provinces, the increase in population is much less than in the central provinces, the conditions of life being less favourable. According to the official returns, the over-sea immigration for the forty-seven years 1857–1903 aggregated 2,872,588, while the departure of emigrants during the same period was 1,066,480, showing a net addition to the population of 1,806,108. A considerable percentage of these arrivals and departures represents seasonal labourers, who come out from Europe solely for the Argentine wheat harvest and should not be classed as immigrants. Unfavourable political and economic conditions of a temporary character influence the emigration movement. During the years 1880–1889, when the country enjoyed exceptional prosperity, the arrivals numbered 1,020,907 and the departures only 175,038, but in 1890–1899, a period of financial depression following the extravagant Celman administration, the arrivals were 928,865 and the departures 552,175. Another disturbing influence has been the high protective tariffs, adopted during the closing years of the century, which increased the costs of living more rapidly than the wages for labour, and compelled thousands of immigrants to seek employment elsewhere. The influence of such legislation on unsettled immigrant labourers may be seen in the number of Italians who periodically migrate from Argentina to Brazil, and vice versa, seeking to better their condition. Of the immigrant arrivals for the forty-seven years given, 1,331,536 were Italians, 414,973 Spaniards, 170,293 French, 37,953 Austrians, 35,435 British, 30,699 Germans, 25,775 Swiss, 19,521 Belgians, and the others of diverse nationalities, so that Argentina is in no danger of losing her Latin character through immigration. This large influx of Europeans, however, is modifying the population by reducing the Indian and mestizo elements to a minority, although they are still numerous in the mesopotamian, northern and north-western provinces. The language is Spanish.

Science and Literature.—Though the university of Córdoba is the oldest but one in South America, it has made no conspicuous contribution to Argentine literature beyond the historical works of its famous rector, Gregorio Funes (1749–1830). This university was founded in 1621 and the university of Buenos Aires in 1821, but although Bonpland and some other European scientists were members of the faculty of Buenos Aires in its early years, neither there nor at Córdoba was any marked attention given to the natural sciences until President Sarmiento (official term, 1868–1874) initiated scientific instruction at the university of Córdoba under the eminent German naturalist, Dr Hermann Burmeister (1807–1892), and founded the National Observatory at Córdoba and placed it under the direction of the noted American astronomer, Benjamin Apthorp Gould (1824–1896). Both of these men made important contributions to science, and rendered an inestimable service to the country, not only through their publications but also through the interest they aroused in scientific research. A bureau of meteorology was afterwards created at Córdoba which has rendered valuable service. Dr Burmeister was afterwards placed in charge of the provincial museum of Buenos Aires, and devoted himself to the acquisition of a collection of fossil remains, now in the La Plata museum, which ranks among the best of the world. Not only has scientific study advanced at the university of Buenos Aires, but scientific research is promoting the development of the country; examples are the geographical explorations of the Andean frontier, and especially of the Patagonian Andes, by Francisco P. Moreno. In literature Argentina is still under the spell of Bohemianism and dilettanteism. Exceptions are the admirable biographies of Manuel Belgrano (d. 1820) and San Martin, important contributions to the history of the country and of the war of independence, by ex-President Bartolomé Mitre (1821–1906). Buenos Aires has some excellent daily journals, but the tone of the press in general is sensational. The number of newspapers published is large, especially in Buenos Aires, where in 1902 the total, including sundry periodicals, was 183.

Political Divisions and Towns.—The chief political divisions of the republic consist of one federal district, 14 provinces and 10 territories, the last in great part dating from the settlement of the territorial controversies with Chile. For purposes of local administration the provinces are divided into departments. The names, area and population of the provinces and territories are as follows:—

The principal towns, with estimated population for 1905, are as follows: Buenos Aires (1,025,653), Rosario (129,121), La Plata (85,000), Tucumán (55,000), Córdoba (43,000), Sante Fé (33,200), Mendoza (32,000), Paraná (27,000), Salta (18,000), Corrientes (18,000), Chivilcoy (15,000), Gualeguaychú (13,300), San Nicolás (13,000), Concordia (11,700), San Juan (11,500), Río Cuarto (10,800), San Luis (10,500), Barracas al Sud (10,200).

Communications.—The development of railways in Argentina, which dates from 1857 when the construction of the Buenos Aires Western was begun, was at first slow and hesitating, but after 1880 it went forward rapidly. Official corruption and speculation have led to some unsound ventures, but in the great majority of cases the

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"," the first of the "Old Glory Series," was written with a twofold object. The first was, to present to young readers a simple and straightforward statement concerning the several causes leading up to the war with Spain; to give a brief view of the conditions prevailing in the ill-fated islands of Cuba and the Philippines; and to trace, incident by incident, just as they actually occurred, the progress of that wonderful battle of Manila Bay, which has no parallel in either ancient or modern history, from the fact that complete defeat upon one side was entirely outbalanced by almost total exemption from harm upon the other. In this battle Commodore Dewey, since made Admiral, and his gallant officers and men, fought a fight ever to be remembered with pride by the American people, for it placed the United States Navy in its proper place, among the leading navies of the world.

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iv The other object of the story was to tell, in as interesting a fashion as the writer could command, the haps and mishaps of a sturdy, conscientious American lad, of good moral character and honest Christian aim, who, compelled through the force of circumstances to make his own way in the world, becomes a sailor boy, a castaway, and then a gunner's assistant on the flagship Olympia. While it is true that Larry Russell has some hazardous adventures, the author believes that they are no more hazardous than might fall to the lot of another situated as Larry was; and if at times the boy escapes some grave perils, it must be borne in mind that "the Lord helps those who help themselves," and that he had an abiding trust in an all-wise and all-powerful Providence.

The author cannot refrain from saying a word regarding the historical portions of this work. What has been said concerning Cuba and the Philippines are simply matters of fact, known to all students of history. The sketch of Admiral Dewey is drawn from the narratives of several people who knew him well at his home in Montpelier, Vermont, at the Annapolis Naval Academy, and in the Navy itself. The record of the battle of Manila Bay has been

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Rh furnished by over fifty officers and men who took part in the contest and wrote the details, for publication, and in private letters to relatives at home, and this record has been supplemented by Admiral Dewey's own reports to the authorities at Washington.

EDWARD STRATEMEYER.

, N.J., August 1, 1898.

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awoke on the thoroughly comfortable sofa that had had all its springs removed, and although he had certainly not been intoxicated, he awoke with what Chitterlow pronounced to be, quite indisputably, a Head and a Mouth. He had slept in his clothes and he felt stiff and uncomfortable all over, but the head and mouth insisted that he must not bother over little things like that. In the head was one large, angular idea that it was physically painful to have there. If he moved his head the angular idea shifted about in the most agonising way. This idea was that he had lost his situation and was utterly ruined and that it really mattered very little. Shalford was certain to hear of his escapade, and that coupled with that row about the Manchester window!

He raised himself Into a sitting position under Chitterlow's urgent encouragement.

He submitted apathetically to his host's attentions. Chitterlow, who admitted being a "bit off it" himself and in need of an egg-cupful of brandy, just an egg-cupful neat, dealt with that Head and Mouth as a

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118 mother might deal with the fall of an only child. He compared it with other Heads and Mouths that he had met, and in particular to certain experienced by the Hon. Thomas Norgate. "Right up to the last," said Chitterlow, "he couldn't stand his liquor. It happens like that at times." And after Chitterlow had pumped on the young beginner's head and given him some anchovy paste piping hot on buttered toast, which he preferred to all the other remedies he had encountered, Kipps resumed his crumpled collar, brushed his clothes, tacked up his knee, and prepared to face Mr. Shalford and the reckoning for this wild, unprecedented night, the first "night out" that ever he had taken.

Acting on Chitterlow's advice to have a bit of a freshener before returning to the Emporium, Kipps walked some way along the Leas and back and then went down to a shop near the Harbour to get a cup of coffee. He found that extremely reinvigorating, and he went on up the High Street to face the inevitable terrors of the office, a faint touch of pride in his depravity tempering his extreme self-abasement. After all, it was not an unmanly headache; he had been out all night, and he had been drinking and his physical disorder was there to witness the fact. If it wasn't for the thought of Shalford he would have been even a proud man to discover himself at last in such a condition. But the thought of Shalford was very dreadful. He met two of the apprentices snatching a walk before shop began. At the sight of them

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CH. V he pulled his spirits together, put his hat back from his pallid brow, thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and adopted an altogether more dissipated carriage; he met their innocent faces with a wan smile. Just for a moment he was glad that his patch at the knee was, after all, visible and that some at least of the mud on his clothes had refused to move at Chitterlow's brushing. What wouldn't they think he had been up to? He passed them without speaking. He could imagine how they regarded his back. Then he recollected Mr. Shalford.…

The deuce of a row certainly and perhaps! He tried to think of plausible versions of the affair. He could explain he had been run down by rather a wild sort of fellow who was riding a bicycle, almost stunned for the moment (even now he felt the effects of the concussion in his head) and had been given whiskey to restore him, and "the fact is, sir"—with an upward inflection of the voice, an upward inflection of the eyebrows and an air of its being the last thing one would have expected whiskey to do, the manifestation indeed of a practically unique physiological weakness—"it got into my 'ed!"

Put like that it didn't look so bad.

He got to the Emporium a little before eight and the housekeeper with whom he was something of a favourite ("There's no harm in Mr. Kipps," she used to say) seemed to like him if anything better for having broken the rules and gave him a piece of dry toast and a good hot cup of tea.

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120 "I suppose the G. V." began Kipps.

"He knows," said the housekeeper.

He went down to shop a little before time, and presently Booch summoned him to the presence.

He emerged from the private office after an interval of ten minutes.

The junior clerk scrutinised his visage. Buggins put the frank question.

Kipps answered with one word.

"Swapped!" said Kipps.

Kipps leant against the fixtures with his hands in his pockets and talked to the two apprentices under him.

"I don't care if I am swapped," said Kipps. "I been sick of Teddy and his System some time. I was a good mind to chuck it when my time was up. Wish I 'ad now."

Afterwards Pierce came round and Kipps repeated this.

"What's it for?" said Pierce. "That row about the window tickets?"

"No fear!" said Kipps and sought to convey a perspective of splendid depravity. "I wasn't in las' night," he said and made even Pierce, "man about town" Pierce, open his eyes.

"Why! where did you get to?" asked Pierce.

He conveyed that he had been "fair round the town." "With a Nactor chap, I know."

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CH. V "One can't always be living like a curit," he said.

"No fear," said Pierce, trying to play up to him.

But Kipps had the top place in that conversation.

"My Lor'!" said Kipps, when Pierce had gone, "but wasn't my mouth and 'ed bad this morning before I 'ad a pick-me-up!"

"Whad jer 'ave?"

"Anchovy on 'ot buttered toast. It's the very best pick-me-up there is. You trust me, Rodgers. I never take no other and I don't advise you to. See?"

And when pressed for further particulars, he said again he had been "fair all round the town, with a Nactor chap" he knew. They asked curiously all he had done and he said, "Well, what do you think?" And when they pressed for still further details he said there were things little boys ought not to know and laughed darkly and found them some huckaback to roll.

And in this manner for a space did Kipps fend off the contemplation of the "key of the street" that Shalford had presented him.

This sort of thing was all very well when junior apprentices were about, but when Kipps was alone with himself it served him not at all. He was uncomfortable inside and his skin was uncomfortable, and Head and Mouth palliated perhaps, but certainly not cured, were still with him. He felt, to tell the truth, nasty and dirty and extremely disgusted with

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122 himself. To work was dreadful and to stand still and think still more dreadful. His patched knee reproached him. These were the second best of his three pairs of trousers, and they had cost him thirteen and sixpence. Practically ruined they were. His dusting pair was unfit for shop and he would have to degrade his best. When he was under inspection he affected the slouch of a desperado, but directly he found himself alone, this passed insensibly into the droop.

The financial aspect of things grew large before him. His whole capital in the world was the sum of five pounds in the Post Office Savings Bank and four and sixpence cash. Besides there would be two months' screw. His little tin box upstairs was no longer big enough for his belongings; he would have to buy another, let alone that it was not calculated to make a good Impression in a new "crib." Then there would be paper and stamps needed in some abundance for answering advertisements and railway fares when he went "crib hunting." He would have to write letters, and he never wrote letters. There was spelling for example to consider. Probably if nothing turned up before his month was up he would have to go home to his Uncle and Aunt.

How would they take it? …

For the present at any rate he resolved not to write to them.

Such disagreeable things as this it was that lurked below the fair surface of Kipps' assertion, "I've been

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CH. V wanting a chance. If 'e 'adn't swapped me, I should very likely 'ave swapped 'im."

In the perplexed privacies of his own mind he could not understand how everything had happened. He had been the Victim of Fate, or at least of one as inexorable—Chitterlow. He tried to recall the successive steps that had culminated so disastrously. They were difficult to recall.…

Buggins that night abounded in counsel and reminiscence.

"Curious thing," said Buggins, "but every time I've had the swap I've never believed I should get another Crib—never. But I have," said Buggins. "Always. So don't lose heart, whatever you do.…

"Whatever you do," said Buggins, "keep hold of your collars and cuffs—shirts if you can, but collars anyhow. Spout them last. And anyhow, it's summer!—you won't want your coat.… You got a good umbrella.…

"You'll no more get a shop from New Romney, than—anything. Go straight up to London, get the cheapest room you can find—and hang out. Don't eat too much. Many a chap's put his prospects in his stomach. Get a cup o' coffee and a slice—egg if you like—but remember you got to turn up at the Warehouse tidy. The best places now, I believe, are the old cabmen's eating houses. Keep your watch and chain as long as you can.…

"There's lots of shops going," said Buggins. "Lots!"

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124 And added reflectively, "But not this time of year perhaps."

He began to recall his own researches. "'Stonishing lot of chaps you see," he said. "All sorts. Look like Dukes some of 'em. High hat. Patent boots. Frock coat. All there. All right for a West End crib. Others—Lord! It's a caution, Kipps. Boots been inked in some reading rooms—I used to write in a Reading Room in Fleet Street, regular penny club—hat been wetted, collar frayed, tail coat buttoned up, black chest-plaster tie—spread out. Shirt, you know, gone" Buggins pointed upward with a pious expression.

"No shirt, I expect?"

"Eat it," said Buggins.

Kipps meditated. "I wonder where old Merton is," he said at last. "I often wondered about 'im."

It was the morning following Kipps' notice of dismissal that Miss Walshingham came into the shop. She came in with a dark, slender lady, rather faded, rather tightly dressed, whom Kipps was to know some day as her mother. He discovered them in the main shop at the counter of the ribbon department. He had come to the opposite glove counter with some goods enclosed in a parcel that he had unpacked in his own department. The two ladies were both bent over a box of black ribbon.

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CH. V He had a moment of tumultuous hesitations. The etiquette of the situation was incomprehensible. He put down his goods very quietly and stood hands on counter, staring at these two ladies. Then, as Miss Walshingham sat back, the instinct of flight seized him.…

He returned to his Manchester shop wildly agitated. Directly he was out of sight of her he wanted to see her. He fretted up and down the counter, and addressed some snappish remarks to the apprentice in the window. He fumbled for a moment with a parcel, untied it needlessly, began to tie it up again and then bolted back again into the main shop. He could hear his own heart beating.

The two ladies were standing in the manner of those who have completed their purchases and are waiting for their change. Mrs. Walshingham regarded some remnants with impersonal interest; Helen's eyes searched the shop. They distinctly lit up when they discovered Kipps.

He dropped his hands to the counter by habit and stood for a moment regarding her awkwardly. What would she do? Would she cut him?

She came across the shop to him. "How are you, Mr, Kipps?" she said, in her clear, distinct tones, and she held out her hand.

"Very well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are you?"

She said she had been buying some ribbon.

He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very

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126 much surprised. This checked something allusive about the class and he said instead that he supposed she was glad to be having her holidays now. She said she was, it gave her more time for reading and that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be going abroad and she thought that perhaps they would go to Knocke or Bruges for a time.

Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would never see her again. He could find neither words nor voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Goodbye," and gave him her hand again.

Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no good now, no good. Her mother! You couldn't say a thing like that before her mother! All was lost but politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emotion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the incense ascends.

Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awkwardly.

He remained holding the door open for some seconds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly to the back of the "costume" window to watch them

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CH. V go down the street. His hands tightened on the window rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested the off-hand replies of a person who found the world a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you cannot, expect me to cut my own students dead," she was in fact saying.…

They vanished round Henderson's corner.

Gone! And he would never see her again—never!

It was as though someone had struck his heart with a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't know! He turned back from the window and the department with its two apprentices was impossible. The whole glaring world was insupportable.

He hesitated and made a rush head down for the cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers asked him a question that he pretended not to hear.

The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar apart from the general basement of the building and dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He drew out the box of these with trembling hands and upset them on the floor, and so having made himself a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting little heart have its way with him for a space.

And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps! Forward!" summoned him once more to face the world.

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text: Kipps/Book 1/Chapter 5

title: Kipps/Book 1/Chapter 5


text: Template:DNB CEH

title: Template:DNB CEH


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Owain Gwynedd


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252 Captain's order from the masthead to keep away two points showed that he had observed something suspicious—in fact, he had noticed a sudden alteration in the course of the chase, and pronounced her to be a long, rakish-looking ship, too large to be a slaver, but thought there was something very suspicious in the sudden alteration of her course, her crowd of sail, and the unusual number of staysails.

"At about 3 P.M. we could see her hull from the deck, and, carrying with us a fresh breeze, while she was in the doldrums, we closed on her rapidly. When within half a mile we hoisted our colors, when every glass was pointed toward her peak, and all sorts of conjectures were made as to what colors she would show. No one could imagine that so large a vessel could be a slaver.

"On closing under her lee, and when within a cable's length, a white package was thrown from her side into the sea; and the experienced then exclaimed, 'A slaver, and there go her papers!' A few minutes more, and we sheered up alongside to leeward of as beautiful model of a ship as ever was seen. Some forty dejected looking individuals, apparently a mixture of all nations, stood on her deck; still no colors, nor did she appear inclined to shorten sail or heave-to. The Captain then determined to run ahead and lower the quarter-boats to drop down and board; and as this manœuvre was being carried out a blank gun caused her to square the mainyard, which she did with studding-sails hanging to the yard, and luffed up into the wind.

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Rh "It was an anxious five minutes to those on board while the boats were away. A small white British ensign run up at her peak showed that she was a prize, and a voice hailed us, 'Eight hundred and fifty slaves on board!'"

In 1855 the California fleet was increased by the building of thirteen medium clipper ships, among which were the Andrew Jackson, Carrier Dove, Charmer, Daring, Herald of the Morning, Mary Whitridge, and Ocean Express. Only three passages were made from Atlantic ports to San Francisco during this year in 100 days or less; the Herald of the Morning, from New York, 99 days; Neptune's Car, from New York, and Westward Ho, from Boston, each 100 days. Thirteen ships made the passage in over 100 days and less than 110 days; among them being the Boston Light, from Boston, 102 days; the Cleopatra and Red Rover, from New York, each 107 days; the Flying Cloud, from New York, and Meteor and Don Quixote, from Boston, each 108 days; the Flying Fish, two passages from Boston in 109 and 105 days, and the Governor Morton, from New York in 104 days.

This was Captain Creesy's last voyage in the Flying Cloud, and he now retired to his home in Salem until 1861, when he was appointed a Commander in the United States Navy and assigned to the clipper ship Ino. She carried a crew of eighty men from Marblehead, and on her second cruise in 1862 made the record run of twelve days from New York to Cadiz. Captain Creesy subsequently commanded the clipper ship Archer, and made two

title: Page:The Clipper Ship Era.djvu/321


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Owain Brogyntyn


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Owain Cyveiliog


text: The Book of Nonsense/There was a Young Lady whose bonnet


text: The Book of Nonsense/There was a Young Person of Smyrna


text: The Book of Nonsense/There was an Old Person of Chili


text: The Book of Nonsense/There was an Old Man with a gong


text:
Page:The Mothers of England.djvu/106

Rh observation, it is too much regarded as a scene—a show—a pageant of the moment, and no more. It is true that music has burst forth among the million, to assert its rights as a natural and almost necessary gratification; but it is to be feared that the machinery by which it is got up, the noise, and the exhibition, have more to do with this means of enjoyment, than the voice and the language which it offers to the music of the soul.

I am aware that I am venturing upon dangerous ground, presuming to oppose a mere straw or a feather, to the great tide of popular feeling, but when one has the means of speaking to the many, it becomes a sacred duty to say in what we really think mankind are regardless of their happiness and their good.

Now it must be evident to all who think seriously on this subject, that if we fix our ideas of the highest excellence, and consequently our admiration upon what is material, cosily, and elaborate, our happiness in this world must depend upon our pecuniary means, for without money there can be no possession of this material excellence. Hence, then, the strife, the turmoil, the dread, in which we live, lest adverse circumstances, the change of public fancy, the lowering of markets, or the failure of a bargain, should deprive us of that which is our chief, or only source of enjoyment. It is evident too, that there can be no refreshment to the mind, in the pursuit of this material excellence; because there is nothing in it which brings the thoughts into necessary and direct relation to the Supreme Being; and hence the weariness with which so many thousands pursue their unremitting avocations, not one half of the faculties, with which as immortal beings they are endowed, having found exercise in what constitutes the business of their lives.

For the remedy of this evil, I am not visionary enough to look to any alteration in our political economy, or to suppose that a new company will start up to protect the poetry of life; but I still think that much might be done by mothers to instil into the minds of children a higher taste, and at the same time one which would be productive of more lasting happiness. The season in all probability will come, when their children will have to mix with the

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102 many in a course of action which scarcely admits of time for the exercise of thought, beyond such mental calculations as are required in carrying on the business of the day; and since the dull routine of necessary occupation in the present times prevents in a great measure those stirring and intense emotions which fix impressions indelibly upon the mind, it becomes a more important duty on the part of mothers, to seek for their children those sources of enjoyment which the natural world affords—those sources of enjoyment of which a reverse of fortune will not be likely to deprive them; which require no strife or contention to obtain; which can be shared with the whole human race, and still enhanced by sharing; and which, while they expand and invigorate the mind, throw it open to clear and indelible impressions of the wisdom, the power, and the goodness of its Creator.

That natural joyousness of boyhood, which is the surest and the happiest medium for receiving impressions, is best cultivated in a country life. Where this can not be enjoyed altogether, it is the duty of parents to take their children into the country sometimes, and as often as they can; and if such seasons of relaxation be properly employed, the time and money bestowed upon them will not be found wasted.

It is worth some cost, and some effort, to give young people lasting and deep impressions of the beautiful and sublime in nature; nor need this be confined to nature alone; for, having imbibed such impressions, they will ever afterward be able to recognise the same principles in art. Yet how often, instead of roaming over hills, listening to waterfalls, and holding converse with the spirit of nature, are children taken in the summer to fashionable bathing-places, or other scenes of public resort, to wear their best clothes, walk out in tight shoes, and hear their mammas and aunts descant upon the elegance of the Dutchess of D—'s equipage! How often is the conversation, during their walks on the public promenades, filled up with what distinguished persons have arrived at the new hotel; what bonnet was worn by Lady B—: who danced with the young heiress; and to what places, but particularly to what shops, all the world resorts! And this is called going into the country! If such be going

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Rh into the country, we may safely say it is taking the town along with us.

Oh, never let such an insult be offered to the trusting heart of youth, as to call that nature, which the "glass of fashion" offers to our view! If young people go to breathe the invigorating sea-breezes, let them, in justice to nature, see the great ocean as it really is, broad, bold, and deep, without the fringe of fashion on its shores. Let them listen to the roaring waves, and run before the sparkling foam, and watch the hollow breakers rise and curl, and dash themselves to rest. Or let them, on still evenings, see the moonlight on the water, her silver pathway over the great deep crossed at intervals by the fisherman's lonely bark, while his rugged form appears for a moment in dark relief, as if contrasting the corporeal with the spiritual. And then let music break the silence—music soft and sweet, and long remembered; for these are pictures graven on the mind; and the sounds then whispered to the soul, are like the language it was born with for the utterance of its secret joys.

Let parents sometimes take their children to the wild hills, where the foot of fashion has never trod. Let them pluck the forest flowers, and weave garlands of the purple heather, and spread their arms to catch the breeze, and look abroad from the bold height, on, far away—away into the distance, until they see the littleness of intervening things. Let them descend into the valley, go into the cottages of the poor, and talk with the shepherd of the phenomena of winds and clouds. Let them learn of him what observations he. has made in his lone watchings among the hills. Let them ask of the peasant about seed-time and harvest; let them taste of his household bread; let them listen to the legends of the place, the old wife's story, the history of the fairy-ring, or of the castle where the great lord dwelt in the ancient times. Let them trace the course of the mountain-stream from the far heights where it falls into a stony basin drop by drop, down the cataract steps by which it leaps into the plain; and then show them the same stream in the distance, a calm deep river winding its silvery way toward the sea.

Nor let them overlook the beautiful and no less wonderful minutiae of nature—the grasshopper in the rich meadow, the wild beet among the broom, or the trout in the

title: Page:The Mothers of England.djvu/108


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Rh Miriam stood close together, silent, and watched. Point after point the steady roses shone out to them, seeming to kindle something in their souls. The dusk came like smoke around, and still did not put out the roses.

Paul looked into Miriam’s eyes. She was pale and expectant with wonder, her lips were parted, and her dark eyes lay open to him. His look seemed to travel down into her. Her soul quivered. It was the communion she wanted. He turned aside, as if pained. He turned to the bush.

“They seem as if they walk like butterflies, and shake themselves,” he said.

She looked at her roses. They were white, some incurved and holy, others expanded in an ecstasy. The tree was dark as a shadow. She lifted her hand impulsively to the flowers; she went forward and touched them in worship.

“Let us go,” he said.

There was a cool scent of ivory roses—a white, virgin scent. Something made him feel anxious and imprisoned. The two walked in silence.

“Till Sunday,” he said quietly, and left her; and she walked home slowly, feeling her soul satisfied with the holiness of the night. He stumbled down the path. And as soon as he was out of the wood, in the free open meadow, where he could breathe, he started to run as fast as he could. It was like a delicious delirium in his veins.

Always when he went with Miriam, and it grew rather late, he knew his mother was fretting and getting angry about him—why, he could not understand. As he went into the house, flinging down his cap, his mother looked up at the clock. She had been sitting thinking, because a chill to her eyes prevented her reading. She could feel Paul being drawn away by this girl. And she did not care for Miriam. “She is one of those who will want to suck a man’s soul out till he has none of his own left,” she said to herself; “and he is just such a gaby as to let himself be absorbed. She will never let him become a man; she never will.” So, while he was away with Miriam, Mrs. Morel grew more and more worked up.

She glanced at the clock and said, coldly and rather tired:

“You have been far enough to-night.”

His soul, warm and exposed from contact with the girl, shrank.

“You must have been right home with her,” his mother continued.

He would not answer. Mrs. Morel, looking at him quickly, 11


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104 stream. Teach them then to know the song of every warbler in the summer woods; point out to them the old rookery around the chimneys of the farm-house; and all the while describe to them the wonders of the vast realm of nature, with the habits and instincts of those innumerable tribes, scarcely heard of in our cities; so that they shall feel, and understand, and remember, by the strong impressions produced upon the spot, that there has been at work, in all this, some mighty and all-pervading Power, before whom the inventions of man are but as the honey and the comb of the little hive beneath the rays of a noonday sun.

If I were asked to point out the happiest situation on earth, I believe I should say—that in which children enjoy a free life in the country, shared with affectionate brothers and sisters, and watched over by kind and judicious parents. Yet how little pains are taken to procure this happiness for children! How much more intent are persons in general upon obtaining handsome drawing-rooms, and costly dresses—in short, upon keeping up that external appearance, which is a passport to what is called good society. And when the drawing-room is furnished, the dresses purchased, and the appearances unexceptionable, what is it all worth? Not one of the thousand aches of head and heart which the extreme of material excellence must under ordinary circumstances cost.

But I shall be accused of barbarism—of wishing to go back to a state of nature, and to live on forest-fruit, if I write in this strain; for it would require volumes to explain the subject fully, in all its bearings upon human happiness. Suffice it then to say, that it is only the excess of admiration bestowed upon material excellence of which I complain—the habit of admiring only what money can procure; and consequently of neglecting those sources of happiness which are offered freely to all, and the enjoyment of which is associated with activity and cheerfulness—with health, both of body and mind.

By confining our taste too much to what is at the same time material and artificial, we discard imagination from the sphere of our enjoyments, and consequently contract and vulgarize our means of gratification. There may be

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162 saw his hair was damp on his forehead with haste, saw him frowning in his heavy fashion, resentfully.

“She must be wonderfully fascinating, that you can’t get away from her, but must go trailing eight miles at this time of night.”

He was hurt between the past glamour with Miriam and the knowledge that his mother fretted. He had meant not to say anything, to refuse to answer. But he could not harden his heart to ignore his mother.

“I do like to talk to her,” he answered irritably.

“Is there nobody else to talk to?”

“You wouldn’t say anything if I went with Edgar.”

“You know I should. You know, whoever you went with, I should say it was too far for you to go trailing, late at night, when you’ve been to Nottingham. Besides”—her voice suddenly flashed into anger and contempt—“it is disgusting—bits of lads and girls courting.”

“It is not courting,” he cried.

“I don’t know what else you call it.”

“It’s not! Do you think we spoon and do? We only talk.”

“Till goodness knows what time and distance,” was the sarcastic rejoinder.

Paul snapped at the laces of his boots angrily.

“What are you so mad about?” he asked. “Because you don’t like her.”

“I don’t say I don’t like her. But I don’t hold with children keeping company, and never did.”

“But you don’t mind our Annie going out with Jim Inger.”

“They’ve more sense than you two.”

“Why?”

“Our Annie’s not one of the deep sort.”

He failed to see the meaning of this remark. But his mother looked tired. She was never so strong after William’s death; and her eyes hurt her.

“Well,” he said, “it’s so pretty in the country. Mr. Sleath asked about you. He said he’d missed you. Are you a bit better?”

“I ought to have been in bed a long time ago,” she replied.

“Why, mother, you know you wouldn’t have gone before quarter-past ten.”

“Oh yes, I should!”

“Oh, little woman, you’d say anything now you’re disagreeable with me, wouldn’t you?”


text: Page:Tensing Exercises.djvu/7

title: Page:Tensing Exercises.djvu/7


text:
Page:Sons and Lovers, 1913, Lawrence.djvu/175

Rh He kissed her forehead that he knew so well: the deep marks between the brows, the rising of the fine hair, greying now, and the proud setting of the temples. His hand lingered on her shoulder after his kiss. Then he went slowly to bed. He had forgotten Miriam; he only saw how his mother’s hair was lifted back from her warm, broad brow. And somehow, she was hurt.

Then the next time he saw Miriam he said to her:

“Don’t let me be late to-night—not later than ten o’clock. My mother gets so upset.”

Miriam dropped her head, brooding.

“Why does she get upset?” she asked.

“Because she says I oughtn’t to be out late when I have to get up early.”

“Very well!” said Miriam, rather quietly, with just a touch of a sneer.

He resented that. And he was usually late again.

That there was any love growing between him and Miriam neither of them would have acknowledged. He thought he was too sane for such sentimentality, and she thought herself too lofty. They both were late in coming to maturity, and psychical ripeness was much behind even the physical. Miriam was exceedingly sensitive, as her mother had always been. The slightest grossness made her recoil almost in anguish. Her brothers were brutal, but never coarse in speech. The men did all the discussing of farm matters outside. But, perhaps because of the continual business of birth and of begetting which goes on upon every farm, Miriam was the more hypersensitive to the matter, and her blood was chastened almost to disgust of the faintest suggestion of such intercourse. Paul took his pitch from her, and their intimacy went on in an utterly blanched and chaste fashion. It could never be mentioned that the mare was in foal.

When he was nineteen, he was earning only twenty shillings a week, but he was happy. His painting went well, and life went well enough. On the Good Friday he organized a walk to the. There were three lads of his own age, then Annie and Arthur, Miriam and Geoffrey. Arthur, apprenticed as an electrician in Nottingham, was home for the holiday. Morel, as usual, was up early, whistling and sawing in the yard. At seven o’clock the family heard him buy threepennyworth of hot-cross buns; he talked with gusto to the little girl who brought them, calling her “my darling.” He turned away several boys who came with more


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osborne, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osburga


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osgar


text:
Author:Thomas Erskine

 * Thomas Erskine (1750-1823), Lord Chancellor of England and author
 * Thomas Erskine (1788-1870), Scottish lay theologian and author

title: Author:Thomas Erskine


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osgodby, Adam de


text:
Page:Sons and Lovers, 1913, Lawrence.djvu/176

164 buns, telling them they had been “kested” by a little lass. Then Mrs. Morel got up, and the family straggled down. It was an immense luxury to everybody, this lying in bed just beyond the ordinary time on a weekday. And Paul and Arthur read before breakfast, and had the meal unwashed, sitting in their shirt-sleeves. This was another holiday luxury. The room was warm. Everything felt free of care and anxiety. There was a sense of plenty in the house.

While the boys were reading, Mrs. Morel went into the garden. They were now in another house, an old one, near the Scargill Street home, which had been left soon after William had died. Directly came an excited cry from the garden:

“Paul, Paul! come and look!”

It was his mother’s voice. He threw down his book and went out. There was a long garden that ran to a field. It was a grey, cold day, with a sharp wind blowing out of Derbyshire. Two fields away Bestwood began, with a jumble of roofs and red house-ends, out of which rose the church tower and the spire of the Congregational chapel. And beyond went woods and hills, right away to the pale grey heights of the Pennine Chain.

Paul looked down the garden for his mother. Her head appeared among the young currant-bushes.

“Come here!” she cried.

“What for?” he answered.

“Come and see.”

She had been looking at the buds on the currant-trees. Paul went up.

“To think,” she said, “that here I might never have seen them!”

Her son went to her side. Under the fence, in a little bed, was a ravel of poor grassy leaves, such as come from very immature bulbs, and three scyllas in bloom. Mrs. Morel pointed to the deep blue flowers.

“Now, just see those!” she exclaimed. “I was looking at the currant-bushes, when, thinks I to myself, ‘There’s something very blue; is it a bit of sugar-bag?’ and there, behold you! Sugar-bag! Three glories of the snow, and such beauties! But where on earth did they come from?”

“I don’t know,” said Paul.

“Well, that’s a marvel, now! I thought I knew every weed and blade in this garden. But haven’t they done well?


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osgod Clapa


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osgoode, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Shanassy, John


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Shaughnessy, Arthur William Edgar


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Shaughnessy, William (1674-1744)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Shaughnessy, William Brooke


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oshere


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oskytel


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oslac


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osler, Edward


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osmund (fl.758)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osmund (fl.803)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osmund (d.1099)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osred (697?-716)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osred (d.792)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osric (d.634)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Osric (d.729)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ossian


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ostler, William


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ostrith


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Sullivan, Donall


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Sullivan, John


text: The Book of Nonsense/There was an Old Lady of Chertsey


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Sullivan, Mortimer


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Sullivan, Philip


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oswald (605?-642)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oswald (d.972)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oswald (fl.1010)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oswald (d.1437)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oswald, James


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oswald, John (d.1793)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oswald, John (1771-1840)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oswald, Richard


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oswell, William Cotton


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oswen, John


text: The Book of Nonsense/There was an Old Man in a tree


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oswin


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oswulf (d.758)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Oswulf (d.1067)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lambert, George Jackson


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lambert, Henry


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lambert, James (1725-1788)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lambert, James (1741-1823)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lambert, John (d.1538)


text: The Kernel and the Husk/What is "Nature"?


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142 XIV

——,

Your last letter now comes to the point which I have been long anticipating, or rather it recurs to the point from which our correspondence started—the credibility of the miracles attributed to Christ. You tell me that during the long vacation you have been rapidly reviewing my letters and attempting to enter into my views. There is much, you say, that is new, and there is something that improves on acquaintance, in this form of "Christian Positivism" as you call it; its intellectual security has attractions for you, and it seems to you to satisfy at once the aspirations of those who are drawn to worship humanity, and of those who are drawn to worship something above humanity. All this looks very well on paper, you say; but when you take up the Gospels, it seems to fade away into a mere student's dream: and you state the objection thus: "For our knowledge of Christ, we depend almost entirely upon the New Testament; now the New Testament contains accounts of miracles; these miracles we are unable to accept as historical; consequently the New Testament must be regarded as non-historical, and the whole story of Christ becomes a myth."

In return for this argument about the New Testament let me supply you with a similarly sceptical one about the Old Testament, and ask you whether you are prepared


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Letter 14] consistently to adopt it. "For our knowledge of the children of Israel, we depend almost entirely upon the Old Testament; now the Old Testament contains accounts of miracles; these miracles we are unable to accept as historical; consequently the Old Testament must be regarded as non-historical, and the story of the descendants of Israel becomes a myth."

Now are you really satisfied with this argument? The so-called Law of Moses, the wandering in the Wilderness, the conquest of Canaan, the lives of the wonder-working Gideon and of Barak, the wars and songs of David, the denunciations, warnings, consolations, sorrows, visions, of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the other prophets, are they indeed, in your judgment, converted into mere myths by the admixture of the miraculous element? Are they even made so far mythical as not to reveal the story of the training of one of the most remarkable of nations, a nation theologically quite singular upon earth? I contend on the contrary, that the removal of the miraculous element results in a two-fold advantage, on the one hand placing the story of Israel in the province of history, and on the other hand, not bringing it down to the level of the common-place, but elevating it to a pinnacle among the histories of nations, and making it in a certain sense more wonderful than before. If Moses was a plenipotentiary miracle-worker from God, then there was nothing unexpected or wonderful in the spiritual results that he achieved; and the wonder rather is that he achieved so little. Give me the thunders of Sinai, with power to burn, blast, and plague my opponents; add to these the power of producing without labour and without delay miraculous supplies of manna, quails, and water, and I myself would undertake to terrify or allure any nation into obeying a far less noble and attractive code of laws than was set forth in the name of Moses. But when I see a lawgiver with


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144 no such powers, doing what Moses did, and shaping, or preparing the way for shaping, one of the most carnal and unspiritual of races into a nation of Priests and Prophets for the civilised world, then I am ready to fall upon my face and to take my shoes from off my feet, saying from the depth of my heart, "Truly God is in this place." "But," say you, "the so-called Law of Moses is no more due to Moses than trial by jury is due to Alfred." That matters not. It is not any one Israelite; it is Israel as a whole, Israel and its lawgivers and poets and prophets collectively; it is the evolution of the spiritual from the carnal Israel that I revere; and all the more, if that evolution be natural. Regarded as miraculous, the history of Israel is somewhat of a failure and a bathos; but, regarded as non-miraculous, it becomes a most miraculous triumph of divine intention and persistence, even though the walls of Jericho succumbed to the trumpets of Israel only in hyperbole, and although the sun stood still at the bidding of Joshua only in the impassioned language of an Oriental poet.

I am quite sure you must feel this as strongly as I do; you cannot honestly and sincerely put aside all the history of Israel as a myth because it contains a non-historic element of miracles, any more than you put aside the battles of Salamis and Regillus because they too have received their miraculous adornment. But some are probably perplexed and scandalized at the task that is apparently set before them of disentangling the true from the false, the myth from the non-myth: "How strange," they say, "that the story of the training of the Priests of the world, that story which should have been a light to guide our feet, has been suffered to shed darkness instead of light and falsehood instead of truth! Is it probable, is it even decent and reverent, to suppose that God should have allowed the Book of Revelation to be so falsified


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Letter 14] that the simple and unlearned cannot depend upon it without the aid of scholars and specialists?"

My reply is that, as long as men reason in this way, assuming that Revelation ought to have been conveyed by some perfect medium, and therefore that it must have been conveyed by some perfect medium, so long it will be as impossible to refute them as it was to refute the Aristotelian astronomers who argued that "The planets ought to move in perfect curves; and the circle is a perfect curve; and therefore the planets must move in circles." We are like children crying for the moon if we demand that this world, or that anything in this world, shall be arranged as if the world were the best of all possible worlds. It is not the best possible world, and we know it is not. Some things attest the glory of God more perfectly than others; but nothing attests it quite perfectly. You might as well hope to remove refraction from the atmosphere, as to remove from the human mind the prejudices which compel and always have compelled mankind to exaggerate and misrepresent divine truth by forcing us to think that God must have acted as we should have acted had we been in His place.

If you and I were omnipotent and had to re-make the Universe, I suppose there is no question but we should make man perfectly good (according to our notions of goodness) and that we should force him to remain good. And if you or I were omnipotent and had to reveal anything to men, we should write it large and clear in the sky, or in the heart, legible to all without effort, so that men should be forced to understand it. But God has neither done this nor anything like it. Therefore, since in other respects He has departed so very far from our notions of the best method, we cannot be surprised if He has not composed the Old Testament quite in the manner which would commend itself to us as the best. From our point


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146 of view the Bible teems with obvious imperfections. In the first place there are none of the modern arrangements for securing accuracy. No special newspaper reporters, not even contemporary writers of memoirs or histories, have handed down to posterity the exact words and deeds of Moses, David, Isaiah, and the great heroes and prophets of Israel. Might we not almost say that there have been as it were arrangements for securing inaccuracy? The authors wrote, in many cases, long after the events they recorded, under conditions which rendered accuracy of detail quite impossible. They have often been lengthy where we could have desired brevity (as for example in the enumerations of pedigrees and in the details of the furniture and ritual of the Temple or the Tabernacle) and very brief where we should have prized amplitude. Writing as Orientals for the most part write history, without statistical exactness, they have sometimes made mistakes (sometimes self-contradictory mistakes) in numbers and names, which it is now impossible to rectify. Nay, we can hardly acquit them sometimes of moral error; they have at all events sometimes appeared to praise, or at least not to blame, sometimes even to impute to God, acts that would seem to us—even when all due allowance is made for difference between ancient and modern standards of morality—deserving of express and severe censure.

But their special error which we are now considering remains yet unmentioned. You know that nations, like individuals, in their infancy have very vague notions of the uniformity of Nature, and very strong notions of the personality of Nature or of some Beings behind Nature. Even in modern times Orientals would say that God or Allah did this or that, where we say that this or that "happened;" and I remember hearing not many years ago that some Jews of Palestine, suffering from the consequences of extensive conflagration, wrote to England for


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Letter 14] relief in a letter which declared—in perfect good faith, and without any intention to imply a miracle—that God had "sent down fire from heaven upon their town." An Eastern traveller of modern times tells an amusing story to the same effect how a camel-driver, when questioned as to the cause of his rheumatism, could not be induced for a long time to make any other answer except that "Allah had caused it;" and even when the traveller had elicited the immediate cause, the man would still persist that "Allah had sent the rheumatism, though it had followed upon drinking a great quantity of camels' milk when he was in a violent heat." You should therefore accustom yourself, if you want to understand the Bible, to look at Western narrative from an Oriental point of view. Take for example the interesting account given by the African traveller Mungo Park of the manner in which a trifling incident saved his life in the desert. Alone and desperate, faint and famished, he had thrown himself down to die, when he suddenly caught sight of a small but exquisitely shaped plant of great rarity and interest: "And can God have taken so much thought and care for the creation of this little plant," he cried, "and have no thought or care for me?" In the strength of this suggestion he started up, pressed on his way, and reached safety. Now compare this striking little story with the similar incident of the gourd, recorded in the Book of Jonah, and imagine how a prophet of Israel could have described the message of salvation. He would have told us (as the prophet Jonah tells us) how the Lord God in the same day caused a plant to grow up before the face of the man, and how the Lord God said unto the man "Hath the Lord thy God taken thought for this plant, and shall He take no thought for thee? Arise, go on thy way"—giving, as from God, the actual words of the thought which the Western traveller describes as suggesting itself or occurring to his


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lambert, John (1619-1683)


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148 mind. You must surely see how naturally this conversion of the natural into the seemingly miraculous would have been effected by a penman of Israel, without the least intention to imply a real suspension of the laws of nature.

Keeping yourself still in the position of an Oriental historian, consider what you would be called on to describe, in setting down the story of Israel. You would find, as your materials, various traditions, mostly oral, mostly perhaps poetic, describing a great deliverance wrought in every particular by the hand of Jehovah Himself: you would find the nation around you, and yourself among the rest, believing that Jehovah Himself had drowned the Egyptians in the Red Sea, that His terrible voice had given the Law from Sinai, that He had been to wandering Israel a cloud in the noontide to protect them from the sun, and a light in the darkness to give them guidance, that He had supplied them with food from Heaven and spread a table for them in the wilderness, that He had Himself given them water from Himself (the Rock of Israel!) to quench their thirst. If the Jordan's fords, unusually shallow, had allowed the whole nation to pass across, as upon dry land, you would be taught as a child to hear and sing, in hymns that reiterated the national deliverance, that the Lord Himself had done this: "The waters saw thee, O Lord, the waters saw thee, and were afraid." If, in the general terror of the Canaanites, a strong city suffered itself to be taken on the mere onset and war cry of the invaders as easily as though it had been an unwalled hamlet, the traditions would tell how the walls fell flat at the sound of the trumpets of Joshua; if some sudden storm, accompanied with hail and immediately followed by an inundation of swollen streams, threw the chariots and horses of the enemy into confusion and ensured their speedy rout; or if, on another occasion, the sudden gloom of a storm had been succeeded by a long evening of peculiar brightness


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Letter 14] and clearness facilitating the pursuit and destruction of the foe, then you would hear that the "stars in their courses" fought against Sisera, or that in the day of Beth-horon the Lord Himself sent down hailstones upon the enemy and stopped the sun at the prayer of Joshua:—

All these materials, expressed in terse poetic phrase, you, as a historian, would have to amplify into prose. Is it not easy to see how, in the process, without any fraud or conscious exaggeration on your part, you would transmute the natural into the miraculous?

To go through the whole of the miracles in the Old Testament and to attempt to shew how in almost every case the miraculous part of the story may have crept in without intention to deceive, would be a task far above my powers; and it would require a book not a letter. If you were to study with care the articles in the Encyclopædia Britannica on the books of the Old Testament they would give you a good deal of light on this subject. But the problem is complicated by the fact that the causes that originated the miraculous element are not always the same. For example the seven miracles of Elijah and the fourteen miracles of Elisha (the latter number being exactly the double of the former in order to fulfil the prayer of Elisha for a "twofold" portion of the spirit of his master) cannot be explained in the same way as the miracles of the Wanderings or as those in the life of Samson. The eminent Hebraist to whom we are indebted for the Articles above-mentioned would confer on all students of the Bible a very great benefit, if he would give us a separate treatise on the Old Testament miracles. Meantime I must content myself with shewing how some


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150 miracles, of what I may call a "grotesque" kind, may be explained as the mere result of misunderstood names. You must be familiar with this kind of explanation, I think, in ancient history, and even in modern English history, although you have never thought of applying it to the Bible. Perhaps you have read in Mr. Isaac Taylor's Words and Places how the sexton in Leighton Buzzard used to show the eagle of the lectern as the identical buzzard from which the place derived its name—little guessing that "Buzzard" is a mere corruption of "Beau-désert;" and the porter at Warwick Castle, when he shows you the bones of the "dun cow" slain by Guy of Warwick, hands down a similar erroneous tradition probably derived from a misunderstanding of "dun." A far more famous instance connects itself with the Phœnician name of "Bosra," belonging to the citadel of Carthage. This name meant, in the Phœnician language, "citadel;" but the Greeks confused it with the Greek word "Bursa," a "hide;" and then they proceeded to invent a story to explain the name. Queen Dido, they said, had bought for a small price as much ground as she could encompass with a hide; she had cut the hide into thin thongs and thereby purchased the site of a city for a trifle: hence the city received the name of "Hide." Thus subtilized the Greeks; but it may interest you to know that our own ancestors consciously or unconsciously followed in their footsteps. There is near Sittingbourne a castle called Tong or Thong Castle, situated on a "tongue" of land (Norse, tunga) which has given it its name. But tradition has invented or imitated the old Greek story, and has declared that the castle was so-called because the site was bought like Dido's, a trifling price being given for so


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Letter 14] much land as could be included in the "thong" made from a bull's hide.

But now to come to the particular instance which is the only one I shall give from the Old Testament. You must recollect, and I think you ought to have been perplexed by, the astounding incident in the life of Samson, connected with the "ass's jawbone." The hero is said first to have slain some hundreds of men with the jawbone of an ass, and then to have thrown away the jawbone in the anguish of a parching thirst. Upon this, the Lord is said, (in the Old Version of the Bible) to have opened a fountain of water in the hollow of the jawbone in answer to his cry: and the fountain was henceforth named En-hakkore, i.e. the "fountain of him that calleth," because Samson "called upon the Lord." Moreover, when he cast away the jawbone, he is said to have called the place Ramath-lehi; which the margin (not of the New Version but of the Old) interprets, "the lifting up of the jawbone" or "the casting away of the jawbone." Without pausing to dwell on the extreme improbability of the details of the story, I will merely state the probable explanation. It is probable that the valley containing the "hollow" in which the fountain lay, was called, from the configuration of the place, "the Ass's Jawbone," before the occurrence of any exploit of Samson in it. Indeed we find it actually called "Lehi," or "Jawbone," in the narrative now under discussion, just before the supposed incident of the jawbone took place: "The Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi (Jawbone)," Judges xv. 9. This latter fact indeed is not conclusive (as the narrator, living long after the event, might possibly use the name of the place handed down to him, even in writing of a time when he believed the name to have been not yet given): but the probability of a natural explanation of


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152 the origin of the name receives strong confirmation from a passage in Strabo (303) who actually mentions some other place (I think in Peloponnesus) called the "Ass's Jawbone." I need not say that Strabo narrates no such Samsonian incident to explain the name, and that it was probably derived (like Dog's Head, Hog's Back and many other such names) from some similarity between the shape of an ass's jawbone and the shape of the valley. Moreover, the word translated "hollow," though it might represent the cavity in an ass's jawbone, might also represent the hollow in a valley, as in Zephaniah (i. 11) "Howl, ye inhabitants of the hollow." Again, the name Ramath-lehi cannot mean "casting away of the jawbone;" it means "lifting up," or "hill," of Lehi: and accordingly the Revised Version translates, "that place was called Ramath-lehi;" and the margin interprets the name thus, "The hill of the jawbone." I should add also that the Revisers—instead of the Old Version, "clave an hollow place that was in the jaw"—give us now, "clave the hollow place that is in Lehi." You must see now surely how on every side the old miraculous interpretation breaks down and makes way for a natural and non-miraculous explanation of the legend. But we have still to explain the name of the fountain, said to have been given from the "calling" of Samson. This is easily done. It appears that the phrase "him that calleth," or "the Caller," is a Hebrew name for the Partridge, so named from its "call," or cry. The "Fountain of the Caller," therefore, in the "hollow place" of the "Ass's Jawbone," was simply, as we might say, Partridge Well in Jawbone Valley, which lay below Jawbone Hill.

But now, many years after the champion of Israel had passed away, comes the legendary poet or historian, who has to tell of some great exploit of deliverance wrought by the hero Samson in this Valley of the Jawbone of the


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Letter 14] Ass by the side of the Fountain of the Caller. Straightway, every local name must be connected with the incident that fills his mind and the minds of all his countrymen who live in the neighbourhood. And so "Jawbone Valley" became so called because it was there that Samson smote the Philistines with "the jawbone of an ass;" and "Jawbone heights" are so-called because on this spot Samson "lifted up" the jawbone against his foes, or "threw it away" after he had destroyed them; and "the Well of the Caller" derives not only its name but even its miraculous existence from "the calling of Samson upon Jehovah."

I think you will now perceive the kind of reasoning which has compelled me to give up the miracles of the Old Testament. It is not in any way because I have an a priori prejudice against miracles: on the contrary, I started with an a priori prejudice for miracles in the Bible, though against miracles in general. It is not simply because there is not sufficient evidence for them; it is in great measure because there is evidence against them. For, when you can shew how a supposed miracle may naturally have occurred, and how the miraculous account may naturally and easily have sprung up, I think that amounts to evidence against the miracle. And of course when you find yourself compelled to explain in this way a large number of miracles in the Old Testament, it becomes far more probable than before that the rest are susceptible of some natural explanation. I do not pretend to have investigated in detail every miraculous narrative in the Old Testament. I am ready to admit that at the bottom of the miraculous, there may have been in many cases something very wonderful. Being for example personally very much inclined to the mysterious, I would not deny that in the Hebrew race, as in some others, there may have been some strange power, natural but at


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154 present inexplicable, of "second sight;" but, on the whole, looking at the evidence for and against the miracles of the Old Testament, I have now no hesitation in rejecting them as miracles, however much I may admire the spirit that suggested the narratives, as exhibiting a profound and spiritual sense of the sympathy of God with men.

But we may perhaps be called upon to believe in the miracles of the Old Testament on the authority, so to speak, of the miracles of the New Testament. Such at least I take to be the meaning of the following extract from an author who has done so much good educational as well as episcopal work, and has manifested such an openness to new truth, that I differ from him with diffidence where I may possibly have misunderstood his meaning, and with regret where I am confident that I have understood him correctly. The passage is from Bishop Temple's Bampton Lectures, and I will give it at full length, partly because I may have to refer to it again, partly because I am afraid of misinterpreting it if I separate one or two sentences from the context:

If I understand this argument, I fear I must dissent from it. But let us try at least to understand it. Dr. Temple admits (what I should not be disposed to have admitted without a good deal of qualification) that "the mixture of poetry with history" (and the context makes it clear that he is referring to the miraculous accounts of


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Letter 14] the Old Testament) is "no longer capable of any sure separation into its parts." This is a very important admission indeed. A plain Englishman may miss, at first sight, the full importance of it. He may be disposed to say, "What does this matter to me? What do I care whether a miracle is told in poetry or in prose, provided only it is true?" But by "poetry" Dr. Temple does not mean "verse;" he means hyperbole, poetic figures of speech and metaphors; in plain English, he means language that is literally and historically untrue. Consequently the admission amounts to this, that it is now no longer possible in the miraculous narratives of the Old Testament to separate what is historically true from what is historically untrue. If this be so, I cannot understand how the question is substantially affected by the New Testament. Let us suppose for a moment that, many centuries after the times of Moses and Samson, real miracles were wrought by Christ and the apostles; suppose even, in addition, that the reality of the miracles wrought by Christ and his followers could constitute any evidence for the Mosaic Miracles or could refute the evidence against such stories as that of the Ass's jawbone; yet even then, what is the use of knowing that there may be a miracle somewhere concealed in an Old Testament narrative in which it is impossible to "make any sure separation" of the historically true from the historically untrue?

But for my part I am quite unable to adopt either of these suppositions. I cannot see how "a distinct preponderance of probability" for the Samsonian myth or the story of the stopping of the sun could be secured by the fact that miracles were really, long afterwards, performed by Christ. All that could fairly be said, as it seems to me, would be this, that since miracles were actually wrought by the Redeemer of the race, who was


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156 Himself a child of Israel, it is not so improbable as before that miracles might have been also wrought by other previous deliverers of Israel. But this could not go far, and certainly cannot constitute "a distinct preponderance of probability," if we find positive evidence for a miracle almost wanting, and negative evidence against it very strong.

So far as Dr. Temple's argument has weight, so far it appears to me to be capable of being used in the opposite direction to that which he intended. For if there is any connection between the miracles of the Old and of the New Testament, so that the probability of the latter may be fairly said—I will not say to constitute "a distinct preponderance of probability," but to contribute slightly to the probability of the former, then surely we must also admit that the demonstrated improbability of the former must contribute slightly to the a priori improbability which we ought to attach to the latter. If the Bible is to be regarded as a whole, and Bible miracles as a whole, then the fact that the Divine Author of the Bible allowed revelation in the earlier part of the Book to be conveyed through an imperfect and non-historical medium will constitute a reasonable probability that He may also have conveyed His later revelations through the same means. In other words, the acknowledged presence of the law of "Truth through Illusion" in the Old Testament should prepare us not to be disappointed if we find


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Letter 14] the same law traceable in the New Testament: and the collapse of miracles in the former should prepare us for a collapse of miracles in the latter.

Do not however suppose for a moment that a collapse of miracles implies a collapse of the Bible, and do not be disheartened by such expressions as that "the mixture of poetry with history is no longer capable of any sure separation into its parts." If that expression refers merely to some of the legends of the times of the Patriarchs, or to a few isolated passages elsewhere, it may be accepted without fear; but it cannot apply to the great bulk of the history of the Chosen People. Here you will find very little difficulty in rejecting the obviously non-historical and miraculous element; and you will lose nothing by the rejection. Read through Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church and ask yourself whether you have missed anything from the campaigns of Joshua and the exploits of Gideon and Samson because the miracles have vanished from his pages. Where miraculous narratives are manifestly not deliberate fabrications, but (as here) late prosaic interpretations of early poetic traditions, they very often afford trustworthy evidence of ancient historical events which imprinted themselves upon the hearts of a simple people. Certainly I can say for myself that I never realized Israel as a nation and had not half my present appreciation of the wisdom and wonder of the deliverance and training of Israel by Jehovah till I had learned to interpret the miracles as being nothing more than man's inadequate attempt to set forth in visible shape the unique redemption of the Chosen People. Spiritually as well as intellectually, my enjoyment of the Old Testament has been doubled ever since I have been able, however imperfectly, to separate the historical element in it from the non-historical, and to interpret the prose as prose and the poetry as poetry.


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lambert, John (fl.1811)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lambert, John (1815-1892)