Pen pictures of modern authors

Front matter

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Preface

THESE are not biographies that are collected here, but a series of sketches, anecdotes, and personal reminiscences relating to the more modern authors — that is, the authors who are now living, or who have died very recently and whose work belongs to the present half of the century. As the book is a com.pilation, the editor has occasionally been hampered by want of available material, and if the reader misses any face which he would like to have seen in a gallery of this sort, he will understand that it is because no satisfactory "pen picture" could be found.

The thanks of the editor are due to the publishers of the various magazines from which articles have been selected, and also to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., for permission to

IV PREFACE.

make extracts from two or three of their copyrighted works, especially from Hawthorne's Note-Books — which are not only interesting as revealing the inner workings of a rare and delicate genius, but contain a large amount of entertaining literary gossip in regard to many of his most famous contemporaries.

Contents

CHAPTBR PAGE

I. THOMAS CARLYLE ...... I

II. GEORGE ELIOT 4I

Chapter I. Thomas Carlyle

Manners and appearance in his early days— Margaret Fuller's portrait — Anecdotes and reminiscences — The Carlyle household described by Henrj'' Larkin.

None of his ''Autobiographic Sketches" De Ouincey tells a story of an evening party at Coleridge's where the conversation having turned upon the Mohammedan creed, theology, and morals, some young man, introduced by Edward Irving, thought fit to pronounce a splendid eulogium upon Mahomet and all his doctrines. This, as a pleasing extravagance, had amused all present. Some hours after, when the party came to separate, the philo-Mohammedan missed his hat, upon which, vv'hile a general search for it was going on. Lamb, turning to the stranger, said, *' Hat, sir ? Your hat ? Don't you think you came in a turban ? " The story is not a particularly good one, although De Quincey quotes it with evident triumph as a notable addition to the

THOMAS CARLYLE.

stock of Eliana, but, as there need be no difficulty in identifying the " young man introduced by Irving," it is interesting as affording a glimpse of Carlyle in his early days. It shows, also, that in his comparatively obscure youth his sturdy self-assertion and overbearing eloquence v/ere not to be daunted, even on a first introduction, by the most brilliant intellectual society in England. It was probably a year or two later that Carlyle was met by George Gilfillan at a party given by Jeffrey. Gilfillan describes him as a man of about thirty years of age, wath dark locks approaching to a curl ; cheeks tinged v/ith a healthy red ; a brow broad, prominent, but rather low, not unlike that which painters give to Burns ; eyes which in a front view said nothing, but which, when seen from the side, were seen rolling in fire ; lips which appeared as if perpetually champing some invisible bit ; the whole aspect of the face being that of infinite restlessness, strongly restrained by self-control. His eyes and lips when he spoke seemed taking parts, and responding to each other in one wild tune. A jaw like that of a tiger formed the base of the head; and a form not tall, but commanding in its mediocrity, from an air of proud humii-

THOMAS CARLYLE.

ity and half-stooping strength, finished off the whole. In a strange, Avild Annandale accent he began an address : *' The public," he said, *^ had become a gigantic jackass ; Literature, a glittering lie ; Science was groping aimlessly amidst the dry dead clatter of the machinery by which it means the universe ; Art wielding a feeble, watery pencil ; History stumbling over dry bones in a valley no longer of vision ; Philosophy lisping and babbling exploded absurdities, mixed with new nonsense about tlie Infinite, the Absolute, and the Eternal ; our Religion a great truth groaning its last ; Truth, Justice, God, turned big, staring, empty words, like the address on a sign remaining after the house was abandoned, or like the envelope after the letter had been extracted, drifting down the wind. And what men we have to meet the crisis ! Sir Walter Scott, a toothless retailer of old wives' fables ; Brougham, an eternal grinder of commonplace and pretentious noise, like a man playing on a hurdygurdy ; Coleridge, talking in a maudlin sleep an infinite deal of nothing; Wordsworth, stooping to extract a spiritual catsup from mushroomxS which were little better than toadstools ; John Wilson, taken to presiding at Noctcs, and painting haggises in floods ; the bishops and clergy of all denominations combined to keep men in a state of pupilage, that they may be kept in port wine and roast beef ; politicians full of cant, insincerity, and falsehood ; Peel, a plausible fox ; John Wilson Croker, an unhanged hound ; Lord John Russell, a turnspit of good pedigree ; Lord Melbourne, a monkey ; ^ these be thy gods, O Israel ! ' Others occupied in undertakings as absurd as to seek to suck the moon out of the sky ; this wind-bag yelping for liberty to the negro, and that other for the improvement of prisons ; — all sham and imposture together — a giant lie — v/hich may soon go dov/n in hell-fire."

The best description of Carlyle, as he appeared in the fulness of his powers, is that given in the following passages from Margaret Fuller's letters to Emerson in 1846. They have often been quoted, but they are worth quoting again.

MARGARET FULLER's DESCRIPTION.

Of the people I saw in London, you will wish me to speak first of the Carlyles. Mr. C. came to see me at once, and appointed an evening to be passed at their house. That first time I was delighted with him. He was in a very sweet humor, full of wit and pathos, without being overbearing or oppressive. I was quite carried away with the rich flow of his discourse ; the hearty, noble earnestness of his personal being brought back the charm which once was upon his writing, before I wearied of it. I admired his Scotch, his Vv^ay of singing his great full sentences, so that each one y>^as like the stanza of a narrative ballad. He let me talk now and then, enough to free my lungs and change my position, so that I did not get tired. That evening he talked of the present state of things in England, giving light, witty sketches of the men of the day, fanatics and others, and some sweet homely stories he told of things he had knov/n of the Scotch peasantry. Of you he spoke with hearty kindness ; and he told, with beautiful feeling, a story of some poor farmer or artisan in the country who on Sunday lays aside the cark and care of that dirty English v/orld and sits reading the essays and looking upon the sea. I left him that night intending to go out very often to their house. I assure you there never was any thing so witty as Carlyle's description of . It was enough to kill one vv-ith

laughing. I, on my side, contributed a story to his fund of anecdote on this subject, and it was fully appreciated. Carlyle is worth a thousand of you for that ; he is not ashamed to laugh when he is amused, but goes on in a cordial, human fashion. The second time Mr. C. had a dinner-party, at

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which was a witty, French, flippant sort of man, author of a '' History of Philosophy " [George Henry Lewes], and now writing a ''Life of Goethe," a task for which he must be as unfit as irreligion and sparkling shallowness can make him. But he told stories admirably, and was allowed sometimes to interrupt Carlyle a little, of which one was glad, for that night he was in his more acrid mood and, though much more brilliant than on the former evening, grew wearisome to me, who disclaimed and rejected almost every thing he said. For a couple of hours he was talking about poetry, and the vv^hole harangue was one eloquent proclamation of the defects in his own mind. Tennyson wrote in verse because the school-masters had taught him that it was great to do so, and had thus, unfortunately, been turned from the true path for a man. Burns had, in like manner, been turned from his vocation. Shakespeare had not had the good sense to see that it would have been better to write straight on in prose — and such nonsense, which, though amusing enough at first, he ran to death after a while. The most amusing part is always when he comes back to some refrain, as, in the "French Revolution," of the "sea-green." In this instance it was Petrarch and Laura, the las{, word pronounced with his ineffable sarcasm of drawl. Although he said this over fifty times, I could not help laughing Vvdien Laura would come,

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Carlyle running his chin out when he spoke it, and his eyes glancing till they looked like the eyes and beak of a bird of prey. Poor Laura ! Luckily for her that her poet had already got her safely canonized beyond the reach of this Teufelsdrockh vulture. The worst of hearing Carlyle is that you cannot interrupt him. I understand the habit and power of haranguing have increased very much upon him, so that you are a perfect prisoner v/hen he has once got hold of you. To interrupt him is a physical impossibility. If you get a chance to remonstrate for a moment, he raises his voice and bears you down. True, he does you no injustice, and, with his admirable penetration, sees the disclaimer in your mind, so that you are not morally delinquent ; but it is not pleasant to be unable to utter it. The latter part of the evening, however, he paid us for this by a series of sketches, in his finest style of railing and raillery, of modern French literature, not one of them perhaps perfectly just, but all drawn with the finest, boldest strokes, and, from his point of view, masterly. All were depreciating except that of Beranger. Of him he spoke with perfect justice, because with hearty sympathy. I had, afterward, some talk with Mrs. C, whom hitherto I had only seen, for who can speak while her husband is there ? I like her very much — she is full of grace, sweetness, and talent. Her eyes are sad and charming. After this they went to stay at Lord Ashburton's, and I only saw them once more, when they came to pass an evening with us. Unluckily, Mazzini was with us, whose society, when he was there alone, I enjoyed more than any. He is a beauteous and pure music ; also, he is a dear friend of Mrs. C, but his being there gave the conversation a turn to " progress " and ideal subjects, and C. was fluent in invectives on all our " rose-water imbecilities." We all felt distant from him, and Mazzini, after some vain efforts to remonstrate, became very sad. Mrs. C. said to me, '' The: 3 are but opinions to Carlyle, but to Mazzini, who has given his all, and helped bring his friends to the scaffold, in pursuit of such subjects, it is a matter of life and death." All Carlyle's talk that evening was a defence of mere force — success the test of right — if people would not behave well, put collars round their necks — find a hero, and let them be his slaves, etc. It was very Titanic and anti-celestial. I wish the last evening had been more melodious. However, I bid Carlyle farev/ell with feelings of the warmest friendship and admiration. We cannot feel otherwise to a great and noble nature, v/hether it harmonize with our own or not. I never appreciated the work he has done for his age till I saw England. I could not. You must stand in the shadow of that mountain of shams to know how hard it is to cast light across it

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Pans, December, 1846. — Accustomed to the iniinite wit and exuberant richness of his writings, his talk is still an amazement and a splendor scarcely to be faced with steady eyes. He does not converse, only harangues. It is the usual misfortune of such marked men that they cannot allow other minds room to breathe and show themselves in their atmosphere, and thus miss the refreshment and instruction which the greatest never cease to need from the experience of the humblest. Carlyle allows no one a chance, but bears down all opposition, not only by his ^yit and onset of words, resistless in their sharpness as so many bayonets, but by actual physical superiority, raising his voice and rushing on his opponent with a torrent of sounds. This is not in the least from unwillingness to allow freedom to others. On the contrary, no man would more enjoy a manly resistance to his thought. But it is the nature of a mind accustomed to follow out its own impulse as the hawk its prey, and v/hicli knows not how to stop in the chase. Carlyle, indeed, is arrogant and overbearing, but in his arrogance there is no littleness, no self-love. It is the heroic arrogance of some old Scandinavian conqueror ; it is his nature, and the untamable impulse that has given him power to crush the dragons. You do not love him, perhaps, nor revere ; and perhaps, also, he would only laugh at you if you did ; but you like him heartily, and like to see him, tlie lO THOMAS CARLYLE.

powerful smith, the Siegfried, melting all the old iron in his furnace till it glows to a sunset red, and burns you if you senselessly go too near. He seems to me quite isolated, lonely as the desert ; yet never was a man more fitted to prize a man, could he find one to m.atch his mood. He finds them, but only in the past. He sings rather than talks. He pours upon you a kind of satirical, heroical, critical poem, with regular cadences, and generally catching up, near the beginning, some singular epithet, which serves as a refrain when his song is full. He sometimes stops a minute to laugh at himself, then begins anew with fresh vigor ; for all the spirits he is driving before him seem to him as fata-morganas, ugly masks, in fact, if he can but make them turn about ; but he laughs that they seem to others such dainty Ariels.

^' Carlyle," says Mr. G. W. Smalley, of the Tribune, " never troubled himself about conventionalities. V/hat he felt, that he said, and as he felt it ; and it did not matter if he sat in his own room or in a public hall. At one of Dickens' readings he has been known to burst out in irrepressible, long-continued,, stentorian laughter, that amounted almost to a convulsion ; swinging his hat in the air meanwhile." He expressed his opinions bluntly enough.

THOMAS CARLYLE. II

When Mr. William Black called upon hini he growled out, " Are you never going- to write any thing serious ? " " And now," he asked Mr. A'Beckett, the author of various '' comic " histories, '' when do you bring out your ' Comic Bible ' ? " He told a friend once that Miss Barrett (Mrs. Browning) had sent him two volumes of poems, and he had written her that " if she had any thing to say she had better put it into plain prose, so a body could understand it, and not trouble herself to make rhymes. But," he laughingly added, '' the woman felt so badly about it that I had to write again." A physician asked him why he did not take medical advice for his ailments. " Sir," he shouted, '^ I might as well pour my troubles into the long hairy ears of a jackass as consult a member of your profession." Another story used to be told with much point by Dickens. The self-confident editor of a certain review was present at a dinner-party, and had enunciated some weighty opinion on the subject under discussion, wrapping it up in a small parcel and laying it by on a shelf as if done with forever — and a dead silence ensued. This silence, to the astonishment of all, was broken by Carlyle looking across the table at the editor in a dreamy way, and saying as though to himself, but in perfectly audible tones, '' Eh, but you 're a puir cratur, a puir, wratched, meeserable cratur!" Then, with a sigh, he relapsed into silence.

Of Carlyle's domestic life a very interesting glimpse has been afforded us by Mr. Henry Larkin, who was for many years an intimate friend of the household. This gentleman tells us that he had long worshipped Carlyle at a distance as the one to whom, " next to my Sovereign Lord and Master, Jesus Christ," he v/as most deeply indebted for light and guidance. But it was not until 1856 that he made his acquaintance. The story I give in his own words, though with some retrenchment and abridgm.ent, to fit It within the limits of this volume.

HENRY LARKIN's REMINISCENCES.

I was living in London, and I chanced to learn that Carlyle wanted help. I was told that he was hard at work on Frederick the Great ; and that he was also preparing to issue a collected edition of his works, for which he wanted good indexes. I saw at once that my opportunity had at length come ; and that there was now a possibility of doing something really useful while I lived. I was still unmarried, and my needs were as moderate as my means, and I had ray evenings as free as I chose to make them. So I wrote him a rather long letter, explaining what v/as necessary, and volunteering my services ; upon wliich I received the following friendly yet cautious invitation :

Chelsea^ i:\ih December, 1856.

Dear Sir: — Your Letter is very loyal and good ; your offer altogether kind and friendly. I am not v/ithout help, volunteer and hired, in these troublesome Enterprises of mine ; nor is there an immediate necessity for more. But I make no doubt you, too, could do acceptable service, if you continued steadily inclined that way.

Perhaps you may as well come and see me at any rate ; we shall then see better what is doable, what not. On Tuesday Evening we are at home, my Wife and I as usual ; Tea is at 7^ o'clock ; if I hear nothing from you, let us expect you then for an hour and half.

Believe me yours truly,

T. Carlyle.

I smiled as I read the limitation of " an hour and half," and wondered Vv'hat sort of long-winded visitor he expected to find me. Punctual to the time, I knocked at the door. I was conducted upstairs into the drawing-room ; and Mrs. Carlyle, who was sitting at needlevv'ork by a small table, rose to receive me. She was very kind, but reserved, and I thought looked strangely sorrowful, as if some great trouble were weighing her down ; I thought she looked ill, and yet there v/as evidently something more depressing than mere bodily suffering. She said Mr. Carlyle would be dov/n presently, but had not .finished his afternoon sleep ; adding, in a slight tone of disparagement, " He always takes a long sleep before tea, and then complains that he can get no sleep at night." While I was wondering at this strange reception, Carlyle himself entered. He bowed somewhat ceremoniously, and we shook hands. He then bade me be seated, and tea was brought in. Of course we talked as we sipped our tea ; but what I chiefly remember is the strange feeling of reserve which seemed to have taken possession of all three of us. Gradually Carlyle began to thaw, probably as he gradually perceived that he had not caught such a gushing enthusiast as he may not unreasonably have expected. At nine o'clock I made a movem.ent, indicating that I was aware that the time allowed was up. But he again bade m.e be seated, kindly said there was no need to hurry away, that he always went out for a v/alk before bed, and that he would walk out with me. In this assurance Mrs. Carlyle kindly joined, and I again sat dov/n, feeling considerably more at ease than before. After this the conversation became more specific, and almost genial, although I recollect very little which Vv^ould be worth repeating. Mrs. Carlyle said little, merely putting in an occasional remark. At length Carlyle abruptly introduced the

TIJOMAS CARLYLE. 15

business which had brought me there, and which I had been waiting for him to refer to. Perhaps my face brightened at this, but certainly his own reserve there and then fell from him, and for the first time I felt that I saw Carlyle himself.

He told me the Lives of Sterling and Schiller were the first things requiring attention ; and that his wish was to have a summary of each chapter and an index of both Lives, to be placed at the end of the book. That, if I found myself fit for the work, and the v/ork fit for me, he could at least promise me enough of it. But one absolute condition was, that he himself w^as not to be worried about it, his thoughts being entirely absorbed in other vrork. In short, that superfluous talk (including wTiting) was, on all occasions, the one thing to be avoided. He handed me the books, and, at eleven o'clock instead of nine, we went out together. He walked w'ith me a mile or more on my road, talking in a kind, fatherly way, v/hich sent me home gratefully triumphant. Mrs. Carlyle Avas again very kind at parting ; but I saw, w-ith a feeling of perplexed disappointment, the same weary look, almost of indifference, which I had noticed when I entered. I little knew then the wearing misery of her life, and little thought how anxiously she was foreboding that all this '' romantic devotion," as she afterward called it, on my part, and Carlyle 's ready acceptance of it, must inevitably end in trouble to us both. This was the time which Carlyle, in his Reminiscences, so sadly speaks of, as the " nadir of her sufferings." I may as well say at once that her anxious forebodings were never quite fulfilled. Troubles enough there undoubtedly were, and, as will be seen, disappointments, too, on both sides. But I think I may confidently say that our relation was one of unbroken mutual esteem from first to last.

I set to work upon the Sterling, and, when I had finished it, sent it with a short note, thinking it best not to trouble Cariyie by calling until he had looked at it and wished to see me, especially as I still had the Schiller to go on w^ith it. While preparing the index, etc., I noted two or three little points which seemed dubious, and called attention to them by slips of paper between the leaves, on which I wrote only what was necessary, thinking it would thus be very little trouble for him to glance at the page, and then do any thing or nothing as he saw fit. There was nothing of any great importance. He had spoken of Sterling in his first few years as being still in "long clothes ;" and I pointed out that this was a form of expression usually applied by mothers to the bird-of-paradise apparel in which they adorn their infants before there is any possibility of the little feet alighting on the ground, and was hardly applicable to a boy trotting by his father's side. I also called attention to an extract which had evidently been tucked in after the rest was written, and which wanted some slight grammatical dovetailing. Besides this, there were two or three instances of what seemed to be imperfect punctuation.

I went next week as desired ; and was much delighted at the cordiality with which both Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle received me. I was especially surprised and delighted at the change in Mrs. Carlyle. She had been very kind before, but with a patiently hopeless look, like a mourner standing by an unclosed grave. But all this had now passed away. All the blinds were drawn up in her house of mourning ; and her face was illuminated with the brightest of welcomes. I never knew any one who could deal out little flatteries so pleasantly and judiciously. I have seen it administered by the spoonful, like brimstone and treacle, and even laid on copiously, as if with a plasterer's trowel. But she knew better. She knew the sensitive points exactly, and, if she chose, could touch them so delicately that it almost seemed like a happy inadvertence ; and she could also prick them with the deftest of needles, if she saw fit. She expressed a good deal of bantering astonishment at what she called "ray accurate knowledge of baby-linen," and was altogether cheerful and congratulatory.

After this my visits became less formal, and were entirely pleasant and encouraging. Mrs. Carlyle and I seemed to get on very happily together. She said she didn't see why Carlyle (she always called him " Carlyle " when in her best moods) should have me all to himself ; and enlisted my services in many little practical difficulties of her own. She once, in those early days, told me, in her pleasant halfflattering, half-bantering way, that I was '^ the only one she had ever heard Carlyle speak of v/ithout what Sir Robert Peel would call * mitigating circumstances ' ! " After some little time, I ventured to send him a short essay of mine, " The Poetry of Life," which had appeared in Chambers' s Journal previous to my Carlylean era, in which I had endeavored to express my notion of the Christian ideal. It was not that I attached any special value to the essay ; but I thought, flimsy as it might seem to him, it v^^ould at least show him my own ethical stand-point, and might call forth some observations from him which would be of value to me, and might even lead to a closer communion of thought between us. The next time I went, after we had transacted our business and I v/as about to leave (for it was only a passing call, in the early part of the day), he returned me my little paper, with a serious, almost grieved look, but v/ithout a word of comment. Mrs. Carlyle was equally silent ; and I had to go m.y way, pondering what such omens might portend. I see now clearly enough that, even in those early days, they must already have looked on me as a kind of feeble Irving ; with much of his spirit of willing helpfulness, but utterly without his great gifts, for which perhaps chiefly they had both admired hira. I have no doubt they were sincerely grieved at the thought, that here was another earnest life brought close to them, equally bound to be wrecked in the vain struggle after the impossible and unattainable. In our subsequent intercourse Mrs. Carlyle tried, many times and in many ways, to impress on me a wholesome sense of all such disastrous futilities. Carlyle seemed as yet to content himself with absolute silence on such impracticable topics ; probably waiting for some freer opportunity, and perhaps hoping that a course of steady hard work might of itself grind much of it out of me. But I shall have to recur to this subject hereafter. Of course all this was not conducive to any very free sympathy of thought or feeling. Indeed, I soon found, even in our freest moments, that there was a distinct distance between us which neither could genially cross.

While on the subject of indexes and summaries, I may perhaps be pardoned for saying that they cost me far more labor than Carlyle had any idea of. But I got my own advantage out of the work, and never left any passage until I was satisfied that I had got the full meaning of it.

At the time of which I am now writing, while I was thus struggling with work which I wholly liked and appreciated, the ill-luck of weary and utterly incompatible labor, which has dogged my footsteps through life, v/as already barking at the door. One day I found Carlyle in great tribulation of spirit about maps and battle-plans, which had become necessary to illustrate the Frederick, then seething and sputtering on the anvil at the fiercest white heat; and which maps and plans he had found himself quite unable to arrange. He had tried his hand at them, and had at last thrown them from him in utter loathing and despair ; and now wistfully appealed to me, to say ''whether amongst my many facilities of help, even map-making might not possibly be one." I never listened to any appeal with feelings of more real dismay than I listened then. I knew well that, do what I would, the whole thing would be as unconquerably intolerable to me as it had already proved to himself. I had had long and very bitter experience, not of map-making and battle-plans, but of very kindred employment ; and I knew with inward shuddering what it must mean for me. But what was I to do .? Was I to refuse him, and throw him back upon his own despair, when he was so confidently and really so pathetically looking to me for deliverance? "No," I thought ; " I have put my hand to the work ; and I will push through with it, come what may !"