Chapter XIII: Introduction (13)

Of course we tried to draw attention generally to the need for some supervision of the poor Workhouse girls throughout the country. I wrote and read at a Social Science Congress a paper on “_Friendless Girls and How to Help them_,” giving a full account of Miss Stephen’s admirable _Preventive Mission_; and this I had reason to hope, aroused some interest. Several years later Miss Elliot wrote a charming little book with full details about her girls and their letters; “_Workhouse Girls; Notes of an attempt to help them_,” published by Nisbet. Also we managed to get numerous articles and letters into newspapers touching on Workhouse abuses and needs generally. Miss Elliot having many influential friends was able to do a great deal in the way of getting our ideas put before the public. I used to write my papers after coming home in the evening and often late into the night. Sometimes, when I was very anxious that something should go off by the early morning mail, I got out of the side window of my sitting-room at two or three o’clock and walked the half-mile to the solitary post-office near the _Black Boy_ (Pillar posts were undreamed of in those days), and then climbed in at the window again, to sleep soundly!

Some years afterwards I wrote in _Fraser’s Magazine_ and later again republished in my _Studies: Ethical and Social_, a somewhat elaborate article on the _Philosophy of the Poor Laws_ as I had come to understand it after my experience at Bristol. This paper was so fortunate as to fall in the way of an Australian philanthropic gentleman, President of a Royal Commission to enquire into the question of Pauper legislation in New South Wales. He, (Mr. Windeyer,) approved of several of my suggestions and recommended them in the Report of his Commission, and eventually procured their embodiment in the laws of the Colony.

The following is one of several letters which I received from him on the subject.

“Chambers,
“Sydney,
“June 6th, 1874.

“My Dear Madam,

“Though personally unknown to you I take the liberty as a warm admirer
of your writings, to which I owe so much both of intellectual
entertainment and profoundest spiritual comfort, to send you herewith
a copy of a Report upon the Public Charities of New South Wales,
brought up by a Royal Commission of which I was the President. I may
add that the document was written by me; and that my brother
Commissioners did me the honour of adopting it without any alteration.
As the views to which I have endeavoured to give expression have been
so eloquently advocated by you, I have ventured to hope that my
attempt to give practical expression to them in this Colony may not be
without interest to you, as the first effort made in this young
country to promulgate sounder and more philosophic views as to the
training of pauper children.

“In your large heart the feeling _Homo sum_ will, I think, make room
for some kindly sympathy with those who, far off, in a small
provincial way, try to rouse the attention and direct the energies of
men for the benefit of their kind, and if any good comes of this bit
of work, I should like you to know how much I have been sustained
amidst much of the opposition which all new ideas encounter, by the
convictions which you have so materially aided in building up and
confirming. If you care to look further into our inquiry I shall be
sending a copy of the evidence to the Misses Hill, whose acquaintance
I had the great pleasure of making on their visit to this country, and
they doubtless would show it to you if caring to see it, but I have
not presumed to bore you with anything further than the Report.

“Believe me, your faithful servant,
“WILL. C. WINDEYER.”

I have since learned with great pleasure from an official Report sent from Australia to a Congress held during the World’s Fair of 1893 at Chicago, that the arrangement has been found perfectly successful, and has been permanently adopted in the Colony.

While earnestly advocating some such friendly care and guardianship of these Workhouse Girls as I have described, I would nevertheless enter here my serious protest against the excessive lengths to which one Society in particular—devoted to the welfare of the humbler class of girls generally—has gone of late years in the matter of incessant pleasure-parties for them. I do not think that encouragement to (what is to them) dissipation, conduces to their real welfare or happiness. It is always only too easy for all of us to remove the centre of our interest from the _Business_ of life to its _Pleasures_. The moment this is done, whether in the case of poor persons or rich, Duty becomes a weariness. Success in our proper work is no longer an object of ambition, and the hours necessarily occupied by it are grudged and curtailed. Amusement usurps the foreground, instead of being kept in the background, of thought. This is the kind of moral _dislocation_ which is even now destroying, in the higher ranks, much of the duty-loving character bequeathed to our Anglo-Saxon race by our Puritan fathers. Ladies and gentlemen do not indeed now “live to eat” like the old epicures, but they live to shoot, to hunt, to play tennis or golf; to give and attend parties of one sort or another; and the result, I think, is to a great degree traceable in the prevailing Pessimism. But bad as excessive Pleasure-seeking and Duty-neglecting is for those who are not compelled to earn their bread, it is absolutely fatal to those who must needs do so. The temptations which lie in the way of a young servant who has acquired a distaste for honest work and a passion for pleasure, require no words of mine to set forth in their terrible colours. Even too much and too exciting _reading_, and endless letter-writing may render wholesome toil obnoxious. A good maid I once possessed simply observed to me (on hearing that a friend’s servant had read twenty volumes in a fortnight and neglected meanwhile to mend her mistress’s clothes), “I never knew anyone who was so fond of books who did not _hate her work_!” It is surely no kindness to train people to hate the means by which they can honourably support themselves, and which might, in itself, be interesting and pleasant to them. But incessant tea-parties and concerts and excursions are much more calculated to distract and dissipate the minds of girls than even the most exciting story books, and the good folks who would be shocked to supply them with an unintermittent series of novels, do not see the mischief of encouraging the perpetual entertainments now in vogue all over the country. Let us make the girls, first _safe_; then as _happy_ as we can. But it is an error to imagine that overindulgence in dissipation,—even in the shape of the most respectable tea-parties and excursions,—is the way to make them either safe or happy.

The following is an account which Miss Florence D. Hill has kindly written for me, of the details of her own work on behalf of pauper children which dovetailed with ours for Workhouse girls:—

“March 27th, 1894.

“I well remember the deep interest with which I learnt from your own
lips the simple but effective plan by which you and Miss Elliot and
her sister befriended the elder girls from Bristol Workhouse, and
heard you read your paper, ‘_Friendless Girls, and How to Help Them_,’
at the meeting of the British Association in Dublin in 1861. Gradually
another benevolent scheme was coming into effect, which not only
bestows friends but a home and family affections on the forlorn pauper
child, taking it in hand from infancy. The reference in your
‘_Philosophy of the Poor Laws_’ to Mr. Greig’s Report on Boarding-out
as pursued for many years at Edinburgh, caused my cousin, Miss Clark,
to make the experiment in South Australia, which has developed into a
noble system for dealing under natural conditions with all destitute
and erring children in the great Colonies of the South Seas.
Meanwhile, at home the evidence of success attained by Mrs. Archer in
Wiltshire and her disciples elsewhere, and by other independent
workers, in placing orphan and deserted children in the care of foster
parents, enabled the late Dr. Goodeve, _ex-officio_ Guardian for
Clifton, to obtain the adoption of the plan by his Board; his wife
becoming President of one of the very first Committees formed to find
suitable homes and supervise the children.

After my efforts above detailed on behalf of the little Girl-thieves, the Ragged street boys, the Incurables and other Sick in Workhouses, and finally for Befriending young Servants, there was another undertaking in which both Miss Elliot and I took great interest for some years after we had ceased to live at Bristol. This was the Housing of the poor in large Cities.

Among the many excellent citizens who then and always have done honour to Bristol, there was a Town Councillor, Mr. T. Territ Taylor, a jeweller, carrying on his business in College Green. At a time when a bad fever seemed to have become endemic in the district of St. Jude’s, this gentleman told us that in his opinion it would never be banished till some fresh legislation were obtained for the _compulsory_ destruction of insanitary dwellings, such as abounded in that quarter. We wondered whether it would be possible to interest some influential M.P.’s among our acquaintances in Mr. Taylor’s views, and after many delays and much consultation with them, I wrote an article in _Fraser’s Magazine_ for February, 1866, in which I was able to print a full sketch by Mr. Taylor of his matured project, and to give the reasons which appeared to us to make such legislation as he advocated exceedingly desirable. I said:—

“The supply of lodgings for the indigent classes in the great towns
has long failed to equal the demand. Each year the case becomes worse,
as population increases, and no tendency arises for capital to be
invested in meeting the want....

“But, it is asked, why does not capital come in here, as everywhere
else, and supply a want as soon as it exists? The reason is simple.
Property in our poor lodgings is very undesirable for large
capitalists. It can be made to pay a high interest only on three
conditions:—1st, That the labour of collecting the rents (which is
always excessive) shall not be deducted from the returns by agents;
2nd, That very little mercy shall be shown to tenants in distress;
3rd, That small expense be incurred in attempting to keep in repair,
paint, or otherwise refresh the houses, which, being inhabited by the
roughest of the community, require double outlay to preserve in
anything better than a squalid and rack-rent condition.

“Convinced long ago of this fact, philanthropists have for years
attempted to mitigate the evil by building, in London and other great
towns, model lodging-houses for the Working Classes, and after long
remaining a doubtful experiment, a success has been achieved in the
case of Mr. Peabody’s, Alderman Waterlow’s, and perhaps some others.
But as regards the two great objects we are considering,—the elevation
of the Indigent, and the prevention of pestilence,—these schemes only
point the way to an enterprise too large for any private funds. All
the existing model lodging-houses not only fix their rents above the
means of the Indigent class, but actually make it a rule not to admit
the persons of whom the class chiefly consists—namely, those who get
their living upon the streets. Thus, for the elevation of the Indigent
and the purifying of those cesspools of wretchedness, wherein cholera
and fever have their source, these model lodging-houses are even
professedly unavailing.”—Reprinted in _Hours of Work and Play_, pp.
46, 47.

Mr. Thomas Hare had, shortly before, set forth in the _Times_ a startlingly magnificent scheme whereby a great Board should raise money, partly from the Rates, to build splendid rows of workmen’s lodging-houses, of which the workmen would eventually, in this ingenious plan become freeholders. Mr. Taylor’s plan was much more modest, and involved in fact only one principal point, the grant of compulsory powers to purchase, indispensable where the refusal of one landlord might invalidate, for sanitary purposes, the purification of a district; and the greed of the class would inevitably render the proposed renovation preposterously costly. Mr. Taylor’s Scheme, as drawn up by himself and placed in our hands, was briefly as follows:—

“An Act of Parliament must be obtained to enable Town Councils and
Local Boards of Health (or other Boards, as may hereafter be thought
best) to purchase, under compulsory powers, the property in
overcrowded and pestilential districts within their jurisdiction, and
build thereon suitable dwellings for the labouring classes.

“The usual powers must be given to borrow money of the Government at a
low rate of interest, on condition of repayment within a specified
time, say from 15 to 20 years, as in the case of the County Lunatic
Asylums.”

Miss Elliot and I having shown this sketch to our friends, a Bill was drawn up embodying it with some additions; “_For the improvement of the Dwellings of the Working Classes_,” and was presented to Parliament by Mr. McCullagh Torrens and my cousin John Locke, in 1867. But though both the Governments of Lord Derby and of Lord Russell the latter of whom Miss Elliot had interested personally in the matter were favourable to the Bill, it was not passed till the following Session; when it became law (with considerable modifications); as 31, 32 Vict., Cap. cxxx., “_An Act to provide better dwellings for Artisans and Labourers_,” 31st July, 1868.

CHAPTER
XIII.
_BRISTOL._
_FRIENDS._

_What is Chance?_ How often does that question recur in the course of every history, small or great? My whole course of life was deflected by the mishap of stepping a little awry out of a train at Bath, and miscalculating the height of the platform, which is there unusually low. I had gone to spend a day with a friend, and on my way back to Bristol I thus sprained my ankle. I was at that time forty years of age (a date I now alas! regard as quite the prime of life!), and in splendid health and spirits, fully intending to continue for the rest of my days labouring on the same lines as prospects of usefulness might open. I remember feeling the delight of walking over the springy sward of the Downs and laughing as I said to myself “I do believe I could walk down anybody and perhaps _talk_ down anybody too!” The next week I was a poor cripple on crutches, never to take a step without them for four long years, during which period I grew practically into an old woman, and (unhappily for me) into a very large and heavy one for want of the exercise to which I had been accustomed. The morning after my mishap, finding my ankle much swollen and being in a great hurry to go on with my work, I sent for one of the principal surgeons in Bristol, who bound the limb so tightly that the circulation (always rather feeble) was impeded, and every sort of distressful condition supervened. Of course the surgeon threw the blame on me for attempting to use the leg; but it was very little I _could_ do in this way even if I had tried, without excessive pain; and, after a few weeks, I went to London in the full confidence that I had only to bespeak “the best advice” to be speedily cured. I did get what all the world would still consider the “best advice;” but bad was that best. Guineas I could ill spare ran away like water while the great surgeon came and went, doing me no good at all; the evil conditions growing worse daily. I returned back from London and spent some wretched months at Clifton. An artery, I believe, was stopped, and there was danger of inflammation of the joint. At last with infinite regret I gave up the hope of ever recovering such activity as would permit me to carry on my work either in the schools or workhouse. No one who has not known the miseries of lameness, the perpetual contention with ignoble difficulties which it involves, can judge how hard a trial it is to an active mind to become a cripple.

Still believing in my simplicity that great surgeons might remedy every evil, I went again to London to consult the most eminent, and by the mistake of a friend, it chanced that I summoned two very great personages on the same day, though, fortunately, at different hours. The case was, of course, of the simplest; but the two gentlemen gave me precisely opposite advice. _One_ sent me abroad to certain baths, which proved to be the wrong ones for my trouble, and gave me a letter to his friend there, a certain Baron. The moment the Baron-Doctor saw my foot he exclaimed that it ought never to have been allowed to get into the state of swollen veins and arrested circulation in which he found it; astringents and all sorts of measures ought to have been applied. In truth I was in a most miserable condition, for I could not drop the limb for two minutes without the blood running into it till it became like an ink-bottle, when, if I held it up, it became as white as if dead. And all this had been getting worse and worse while I was consulting ten doctors in succession, and chiefly the most eminent in England! The Baron-Doctor first told me that the waters _would_ bring out the gout, and then, when I objected, assured me they should _not_ bring it out; after which I relinquished the privilege of his visits and he charged me for an entire course of treatment.

The _second_ great London surgeon told me _not_ to go abroad, but to have a gutta-percha boot made for my leg to keep it stiff. I had the boot made, (with much distress and expense), took it abroad in my trunk, and asked the successor of the Baron-Doctor (who could make the waters give the gout or not as he pleased), “Whether he advised me to wear the wonderful machine?” The good old Frenchman, who was also Mayor of his town, and who did me more good than anybody else, replied cautiously, “If you wish, Madame, to be lame for life you will wear that boot. A great many English come to us here to be unstiffened after having had their joints stiffened by English surgeons’ devices of this sort, but we can do nothing for them. A joint once thoroughly stiff can never be restored.” It may be guessed that the expensive boot was quietly deposited on the nearest heap of rubbish.

After that experience I tried the baths in Savoy and others in Italy. But my lameness seemed permanent. A great Italian Doctor could think of nothing better than to put a few walnut-leaves on my ankle—a process which might perhaps have effected something in fifty years! Only the good and great Nélaton, whom I consulted in Paris, told me he believed I should recover some time; but he could not tell me anything to do to hasten the event. Returned to London I sent for Sir William Fergusson, and that honest man on hearing my story said simply: “And if you had gone to nobody and not bandaged your ankle, but merely bathed it, you would have been well in three weeks.” Thus I learned from the best authority, that I had paid for the folly of consulting an eminent surgeon for a common sprain, by four years of miserable helplessness and by the breaking up of my whole plan of life.

I must conclude this dismal record by one last trait of medical character. I had determined, after seeing Fergusson, to consult no other doctor; indeed I could ill afford to do so. But a friend conveyed to me a message from a London surgeon of repute (since dead) that he would like to be allowed to treat me gratuitously; having felt much interest in my books. I was simple enough to fall into the trap and to feel grateful for his offer: and I paid him several visits, during which he chatted pleasantly, and once did some trifling thing to relieve my foot. One day I wrote and asked him kindly to advise me by letter about some directions he had given me; whereupon he answered tartly that he “could not correspond; and that I must always attend at his house.” The suspicion dawned on me, and soon reached conviction, that what he wanted was not so much to cure _me_, as to swell the scanty show of patients in his waiting-room! Of course after this, I speedily retreated; offering many thanks and some small, and as I hoped, acceptable _souvenir_ with inscription to lie on his table. But when I thought this had concluded my relations with Mr. ——, I found I had reckoned without my—_doctor_! One after another he wrote to me three or four peremptory notes requesting me to send him introductions for himself or his family, to influential friends of mine rather out of his sphere. I would rather have paid him fifty fees than have felt bound to give these introductions.

Finally I ceased to do anything whatever to my unfortunate ankle, except what most of my advisers had forbidden, namely, to walk upon it,—and a year or two afterwards I climbed Cader Idris; walking quietly with my friend to the summit. Sitting there, on the Giants’ Chair we passed an unanimous resolution. It was: “_Hang the Doctors!_”

I must now set down a few recollections of the many friends and interesting acquaintances whom I met at Bristol. In the first place I may say briefly that all Miss Carpenter’s friends (mostly Unitarians) were very kind to me, and that though I did not go out to any sort of entertainment while I lived with her, it was not for lack of hospitable invitations.

The family next to that of the Dean with which I became closely acquainted and to which I owed most, was that of Matthew Davenport Hill, the Recorder of Birmingham, whose labours (summed up in his own _Repression of Crime_ and in his _Biography_ by his daughters) did more, I believe, than those of any other philanthropist beside Mary Carpenter, to improve the treatment of both adult and juvenile crime in England. I am not competent to offer judgment on the many questions of jurisprudence with which he dealt, but I can well testify to the exceeding goodness of his large heart, the massiveness of his grasp of his subjects, and (never-to-be-forgotten) his most delightful humour. He was a man who from unlucky chances never attained a position commensurate with his abilities and his worth, but who was beloved and admired in no ordinary degree by all who came near him. His family of sons and daughters formed a centre of usefulness in the neighbourhood of Bristol as they have since done in London, where Miss Hill is, I believe, now the senior member of the School Board, while her sister, Miss Florence Davenport Hill, has been equally active as a Poor Law Guardian, and most especially as the promoter of the great and farreaching reform in the management of pauper orphans, known as the system of Boarding-out, of which I have spoken in the last chapter. I must not indulge myself by writing at too great length of such friends, but will insert here a few notes I made of Recorder Hill’s wonderfully interesting conversation during a Christmas visit I paid to him at Heath House.

“Dec. 26th. I spent yesterday and last night with my kind friends the
Hills at Heath House. In the evening I drew out the Recorder to speak
of questions of evidence, and he told me many remarkable anecdotes in
his own practice at the Bar, of doubtful identity, &c. On one occasion
a case was tried three times; and he observed how the _certainty_ of
the witnesses, the clearness of details, and unhesitating asseveration
of facts which at first had been doubtfully stated, _grew_ in each
trial. He said ‘the most dangerous of all witnesses are those who
_honestly_ give _false_ witness—a most numerous class.’

“To-day he invited me to walk with him on his terrace and up and down
the approach. The snow lay thick on the grass, but the sun shone
bright, and I walked for more than an hour and a-half beside the dear
old man. He told me how he had by degrees learned to distrust all
ideas of Retribution, and to believe in the ‘aggressive power of love
and kindness,’ (a phrase Lady Byron had liked); and how at last it
struck him that all this was in the new Testament; and that few,
except religious Christians, ever aided the great causes of
philanthropy. I said, it was quite true, Christ had revealed that
religion of love; and that there were unhappily very few who, having
intellectually doubted the Christian creed, pressed on further to any
clear or fervent religion beyond; but that without religion, _i.e._,
love of God, I hardly believed it possible to work for man. He said he
had known nearly all the eminent men of his time in every line, and
had somehow got close to them, and had never found one of them really
believe Christianity. I said, ‘No; no strong intellect of our day
could do so, altogether; but that I thought it was faithless in us to
doubt that if we pushed bravely on to whatever seemed _truth_ we
should there find all the more reason to love God and man, and never
lose any _real_ good of Christianity.’ He agreed, but said, ‘You are a
watchmaker, I am a weaver; this is your work, I have a different
one,—and I cannot afford to part with the Evangelicals, who are my
best helpers. Thus though I wholly disagree with them about Sunday I
never publish my difference.’ I said I felt the great danger of
pushing uneducated people beyond the bounds of an authoritative creed,
and for my own part would think it safest that Jowett’s views should
prevail for a generation, preparatory to Theism.

“Then we spoke of Immortality, and he expressed himself nobly on the
thought that all our differences of rich and poor, wise or ignorant,
are lost in comparison of that one fact of our common Immortality. As
he said, he felt that waiting a moment jostled in a crowd at a railway
station, was a larger point in comparison of his whole life than this
life is, to the future. We joined in condemning Emerson and George
Eliot’s ideas of the ‘little value’ of ordinary souls. His burst of
indignation at her phrase ‘_Guano races of men_’ was very fine. He
said, talking of Reformatories, ‘A century hence,—in 1960,—some people
will walk this terrace and talk of the great improvement of the new
asylums where hopeless criminals and vicious persons will be
permanently consigned. They will not be formally condemned for life,
but we shall all know that they will never fulfil the conditions of
their release. They will not be made unhappy, but forced to work and
kept under strong control; the happiest state for them.’”

Here is a very flattering letter from Mr. Hill written a few years later, on receipt of a copy of my _Italics_:—

“The Hawthorns,
“Edgbaston, Birmingham,
“25th Oct., 1864.

“My dear Miss Cobbe,

“Although I am kept out of court to-day at the instance of my
physician, who threatens me with bronchitis if I do not keep house,
yet it has been a day not devoid of much enjoyment. Your charming book
which, alas, I have nearly finished, is carrying me through it only
too rapidly. What a harvest of observation, thought, reading, and
discourse have you brought home from Italy! But I am too much
overwhelmed with it to talk much about it, especially in the
obfuscated state of my intellect to which I am just now reduced. But I
must just tell you how I am amused in midst of my admiration, with
your humility as regards your sex; said humility being a cloak which,
opening a little at one page, discloses a rich garment of pride
underneath (_vide_ page 438 towards the bottom). I say no more, only
as I don’t mean to give up the follies of youth for the next eight
years, that is until I am eighty, I don’t choose to be called
‘venerable.’ One might as well consent to become an Archdeacon at
once!

“Your portraits are delightful, some of the originals I know, and the
likeness is good, but alas, idealized!

“To call your book a ‘trifling’ work is just as absurd as to call me
‘venerable.’ It deals nobly, fearlessly, and I will add in many parts
_profoundly_, with the greatest questions that can employ human
intellect or touch the human heart, and although I do not always agree
with you, I always respect your opinions and learn from the arguments
by which they are supported. But certainly in the vast majority of
instances I do agree with you, and more than agree, which is a cold,
unimpressive term.

“Most truly yours,
“M. D. HILL.”

“Heath House, Stapleton, Bristol,
“17th August, 1871.

“My dear Miss Cobbe,

“That is to say falsest of woman-kind! You have cruelly jilted me.
Florry wrote to say you were coming here as you ought to have done
long ago. Well, as your countryman, Ossian, or his double, Macpherson,
says, ‘Age is dark and unlovely,’ and therefore the rival of the
American Giantess turns a broad back upon me. I must submit to my
fall....

“Though I take in the _Echo_, I have not lately seen any article which
I could confidently attribute to your pen.

“I have, however, been much gratified with your article on _The
Devil_, the only writing I ever read on the origin of evil which did
not appear to me absolutely contemptible. Talking of these matters,
Coleridge said to Thelwall (_ex relatione_ Thelwall), ‘God has all the
power that _is_, but there is no power over a contradiction expressed
or implied.’ Your suggestion that the existence of evil is due to
contradiction, is, I have no doubt, very just, but my stupid head is
this morning quite unable to put on paper what is foggily floating in
my mind, and so I leave it.

“I spent a good part of yesterday morning in reading the _Westminster
Review_ of Walt Whitman’s works, which quite laid hold of me.

“Most truly yours,
“M. D. HILL.”

Another interesting person whom I first came to know at Bristol, (where he visited at the Deanery and at Dr. Symonds’ house,) was the late Master of Balliol. I have already cited some kind letters from him referring to our plans for Incurables and Workhouse Girls. I will be vain enough to quote here, with the permission of the friend to whom they were addressed, some of his remarks about my _Intuitive Morals_ and _Broken Lights_; and also his opinion of Theodore Parker, which will interest many readers:—

“From Rev. Benjamin Jowett.

“January 22nd, 1861.

“I heard of your friend Miss Cobbe the other day at Fulham.... Pray
urge her to go on with her books and try to make them more
interesting. (This can only be done by throwing more feeling into them
and adapting them more to what other people are thinking and feeling
about). I am not speaking of changing her ideas, but the mode of
expressing them. The great labour of writing is adapting what you say
to others. She has great ability, and there is something really fine
and striking in her views of things, so that it is worth while she
should consider the form of her writings.”...

“April 16th, 1861.

“Let me pass to a more interesting subject—Miss Cobbe. Since I wrote
to you last I have read the greater part of her book” (_Intuitive
Morals_) “which I quite agree with you in thinking full of interest.
It shows great power and knowledge of the subject, yet I should fear
it would be hardly intelligible to anyone who had not been nourished
at some time of their lives on the philosophy of Kant; and also she
seems to me to be too exclusive and antagonistic towards other
systems—_e.g._, the Utilitarian. All systems of Philosophy have their
place and use, and lay hold on some minds, and therefore though they
are not all equally true, it is no use to rail at Bentham and the
Utilitarians after the manner of _Blackwood’s Magazine_. Perhaps,
however, Miss Cobbe would retort on me that her attacks on the
Utilitarians have their place and their use too; only they were not
meant for people who ‘revel in Scepticism’ like me (the _Saturday
Review_ says, is it not very Irish of them to say so?) Pray exhort her
to write (for it is really worth while) and not to spend her money and
time wholly in schemes of philanthropy. For a woman of her ability,
writing offers a great field, better in many respects than practical
life.”

“October 10th, 1861.

“A day or two ago I was at Clifton and saw Miss Cobbe, who might be
truly described as very ‘jolly.’ I went to a five o’clock tea with her
and met various people—an aged physician named Dr. Brabant who about
thirty years ago gave up his practice to study Hebrew and became the
friend of German Theologians; Miss Blagden, whom you probably know, an
amiable lady who has written a novel and is the owner of a little
white puppy wearing a scarlet coat; Dr. Goodeve, an Indian Medical
Officer; and various others.”...

“February 2nd, 1862.

“Remember me to Miss Cobbe. I hope she gains from you sound notions on
Political Economy. I shall always maintain that Philanthropy is
intolerable when not based on sound ideas of Political Economy.”

“June 4th, 1862.

“The articles in the _Daily News_ I did not see. Were they Miss
Cobbe’s? I read her paper in Fraser in which the story of the Carnival
was extremely well told.”...

“March 15th, 1863.

“I write to thank you for Miss Cobbe’s pamphlet, which I have read
with great pleasure. I think her writing is always good and able. I
have never seen Theodore Parker’s works: he was, I imagine, a sort of
hero and prophet; but I think I would rather have the Church of
England large enough for us all with old memories and feelings,
notwithstanding many difficulties and some iniquities, than new
systems of Theism.”...

“March 10th, 1864.

“Miss Cobbe has also kindly sent me a little book called _Broken
Lights_, which appears to me to be extremely good. (I think the title
is rather a mistake.) I dare say that you have read the book. The
style is excellent, and the moderation and calmness with which the
different parties are treated is beyond praise. The only adverse
criticism that I should venture to make is that the latter part is too
much narrowed to Theodore Parker’s point of view, who was a great man,
but too confident, I think, that the world could be held together by
spiritual instincts.”

And here are three charming letters from Mr. Jowett to me, one of them in reply to a letter from me from Rome, the others of a later date.

“Dear Miss Cobbe,

“I write to thank you for the Fraser which I received this morning and
have read with great amusement and interest. I think that I should
really feel happier living to see the end of the Pope, at least in his
present mode of existence.

“I did indeed receive a most capital letter from you with a kind note
from Miss Elliot. And ‘I do remember me of my faults this day.’ The
truth is that being very busy with Plato (do you know the intolerable
burden of writing a fat book in two vols.?) I put off answering the
letters until I was not quite certain whether the kind writers of them
were still at Rome. I thought the Plato would have been out by this
time, but this was only one of the numerous delusions in which authors
indulge. The notes, however, are really finished, and the Essays will
be done in a few months. I suspect you can read Greek, and shall
therefore hope to send you a copy.

“I was always inclined to think well of the Romans from their defence
of Rome in 1848, and their greatness and strength really does seem to
show that they mean to be the centre of a great nation.

“Will you give my very kind regards to the Elliots? I should write to
them if I knew exactly where: I hear that the Dean is transformed into
a worshipper of the Virgin and of other pictures of the Saints.[17]

“Believe me, dear Miss Cobbe,
“Yours very truly,
“B. JOWETT.

“Bal. Coll., May 19th.

“Coll. de Bal., Oxon.

“Dear Miss Cobbe,

“I shall certainly read your paper on Political Economy. Political
Economy seems to me in this imperfect world to be Humanity on a large
scale (though not the whole of humanity). And I am always afraid of it
being partially supplanted by humanity on the small scale, which
relieves one-sixth of the poor whom we see, and pauperizes the mind of
five-sixths whom we don’t see.

“I won’t trouble you with any more reflections on such an old subject.
Remember me most kindly to the Dean and his daughters. I was going to
send him a copy of the Articles against Dr. Williams. But upon second
thoughts, I won’t. It is such an ungracious, unsavoury matter. I hope
that he won’t give up the Prolocutorship, or that, if he does, he will
state boldly his reasons for doing so. It is true that neither he nor
anyone can do much good there. But the mere fact of a great position
in the Church of England being held by a liberal clergyman is of great
importance.

“I should have much liked to go to Rome this winter. But I am so
entangled, first, with Plato, and, second, with the necessity of
getting rid of Plato and writing something on Theology, that I do not
feel justified in leaving my work. The vote of last Tuesday deferring
indefinitely the endowment of my Professorship makes me feel that life
is becoming a serious business to me. Not that I complain; the amount
of sympathy and support which I have received has been enough to
sustain anyone, if they needed it, (you should have seen an excellent
squib written by a young undergraduate). But my friends are sanguine
in imagining they will succeed hereafter. Next year it is true that
they probably will get a small majority in Congregation. This,
however, is of no use, as the other party will always bring up the
country clergy in Convocation. I have, therefore, requested Dr.
Stanley to take no further steps in the Council on the subject; it
seems to me undignified to keep the University squabbling about my
income.

“Excuse this long story which is partly suggested by your kind letter.
I hope you will enjoy Rome. With sincere regard,

“Believe me, yours truly,
“B. JOWETT.”

“Rev. Benjamin Jowett to Miss Cobbe.
“Coll. de Ball., Oxon,
“February 24th, 1865.

“My Dear Miss Cobbe,

“I write to thank you for your very kind note. I am much more pleased
at the rejoicings of my friends than at the result which has been so
long delayed as to be almost indifferent to me. I used to be annoyed
at feeling that I was such a bad example to young men, because they
saw, as they were intended to see, that unless they concealed their
opinions they would suffer. I hope they will have more cheerful
prospects now.

“I trust that some day I shall be able to write something more on
Theology. But the Plato has proved an enormous work, having expanded
into a sort of translation of the whole of the Dialogues. I believe
this will be finished and printed about Christmas, but not before.

“I have been sorry to hear of your continued illness. When I come to
London I shall hope to look in upon you in Hereford Square.

“In haste, believe me,
“Yours very truly,
“B. JOWETT.”

“I read a book of Theodore Parker’s the other day—‘Discourses on
Religion.’ He was a friend of yours, I believe? I admire his
character—a sort of religious Titan. But I thought his philosophy
seemed to rest too much on instincts.”

How much Mr. Jowett had to bear from the animosity of his orthodox contemporaries in the Sixties at Oxford was illustrated by the following incident. I was, one day about this time, showing his photograph to a lady, when her son, late from Oxford, came into the room with a dog at his heels. Seeing the photograph, he remarked, “Ah, yes! very like. _This dog_ pinned him in quod one day, and was made so much of afterwards! The Dean of —— especially invited him” (the dog) “to lunch. Jowett complained of me, and I had to send all my dogs out of Oxford!”

The following is a Note which I made of two of his visits to me on Durdham Down:

“Two visits from Mr. Jowett, who each time drank tea with me. He said
he felt writing to be a great labour; but regularly wrote one page
every day. The liberal, benevolent way he spoke of all creeds was
delightful. In particular he spoke of the temptation to Pantheism and
praised Hegel, whom, he said, he had studied deeply. Advising me
kindly to go on writing books, he maintained against me the vast power
of books in the world.”

Mr. Jowett was, of course, at all times a most interesting personality, and one whose intercourse was delightful and highly exciting to the intellect. But his excessive shyness, combined with his faculty for saying exceedingly sharp things, must have precluded, I should think, much ease of conversation between him and the majority of his friends. As usually happens in the case of shy people, he exhibited rather less of the characteristic with an acquaintance like myself who was never shy (my mother’s training saved me from that affliction!) and who was not at all afraid of him.

In later years Mr. Jowett obtained for me (in 1876) the signatures of the Heads of every College in Oxford to a Petition which I had myself written, to the House of Lords in favour of Lord Carnarvon’s original Bill for the restriction of Vivisection. At a later date the Master of Balliol declined to support me further in the agitation for the prohibition of the practice; referring me to the assurances of a certain eminent Boanerges of Science as guarantee for the necessity of the practice and the humanity of vivisectors. It is very surprising to me how good and strong men, who would disdain to accept a _religious_ principle or dogma from pope or Council, will take a _moral_ one without hesitation from any doctor or professor of science who may lay down the law for them, and present the facts so as to make the scale turn his way. Where would Protestant divines be, if they squared their theologies with all the historical statements and legends of Romanism? If we construct our ethical judgments upon the statements and representations of persons interested in maintaining a practice, what chance is there that they should be sound?

I find, in a letter to a friend (dated May, 1868) the following _souvenir_ of a sermon by Mr. Jowett, delivered in a church near Soho:—

“We went to that sermon on Sunday. It was really very fine and very
bold; much better than the report in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ made it.
Mr. Albert D—— was there, but few else who looked as if they could
understand him. He has a good voice and delivery, and the “cherubic”
countenance and appealing eyes suit the pulpit; but he _looks at one_
as I never knew any preacher do. We sat close to him, and it was as if
we were in a drawing-room. M. says that all the first part was taken
from my _Broken Lights_; that is,—it was a sketch of existing opinions
on the same plan. It was good when he said:

“The High church watchword is: _The Church; always and ever the same_.

“The Low church watchword is: _The Bible only the Religion of
Protestants_.

“The party of Knowledge has for its principle: ‘_The Truth ever and
always, and wherever it be found_.’

“He gave each their share of praise and blame, saying: ‘the fault of
the last party’ (his own, of course) was—that ‘sometimes in the
pursuit of _Knowledge_ they forgot _Goodness_.’”

I heard him preach more than once afterwards in the same gloomy old church. His aspect in his surplice was exceedingly quaint. His face, even in old age, was like that of an innocent, round-faced child; and his short, slender figure, wrapped in the long white garment, irresistibly suggested to me the idea of “an elderly cherub prepared for bed”! Altogether, taking into account his entire career, the Master of Balliol was an unique figure in English life, whom I much rejoice to have known; a modern Melchisedek.

Here is another memorandum about the same date, respecting another eminent man, interesting in another way:—

“Sept. 25th, 1860. A pleasant evening at Canon Guthrie’s. Introduced
to old Lord Lansdowne; a gentle, courteous old man with deep-set,
faded grey eyes, and heavy eyebrows; a blue coat and _brass buttons_!
In the course of the evening I was carrying on war in a corner of the
room against the Dean of Bristol, Mr. C—— and Margaret Elliot, about
Toryism. I argued that if _Justice to all_ were the chief end of
Government, the power should be lodged in the hands of the class who
_best understood Justice_; and that the consequence of the opposite
course was manifest in America, where the freest government which had
ever existed, supported also the most gigantic of all wrongs—Slavery.
On this Countess Rothkirch who sat by, clapped her hands with joy; and
the Dean came down on me saying, ‘That if power should only be given
to those who would use it justly, then the Tories should never have
any power at all; for they _never_ used it justly.’ Hearing the
laughter at my discomfiture, Lord Lansdowne toddled across the room
and sat down beside me saying: ‘What is it all about?’ I cried: ‘Oh
Lord Lansdowne! you are the very person in the whole world to help
me—_I am defending Tory principles!_’ He laughed heartily, and said ‘I
am afraid I can hardly do that.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, ‘you may be
converted at the eleventh hour!’ ‘Don’t you know,’ he said, ‘what a
child asked her mother: “Are Tories _born_ wicked, mother, or do they
only become so?”’ Margaret said this was really asked by a cousin of
her own, one of the Adam family. It ended in much laughter and talking
about ‘_Transformation_,’ and the ‘_Semi-attached Couple_‘—which Lord
Lansdowne said he was just reading. ‘I like novels very much,’ he
said, ‘only I take a little time between each of them.’ When I got up
to go away the kind old man rose in the most courtly way to shake
hands, and paid me a little old-world compliment.”

This was the eloquent statesman and patron of literature, Henry, third Marquis of Lansdowne, in whose time his house, (Bowood,) was the resort of the finest intellectual society of England. I have a droll letter in my possession referring to this Bowood society, by Sydney Smith, written to Mrs. Kemble, then Mrs. Butler. It has come to me with all her other papers and with seven letters from Lord Lansdowne pressing her to pay him visits. Sydney Smith writes on his invitation to her to come to Combe Fleury; after minute directions about the route:—

“The interval between breakfast and dinner brings you to Combe Fleury.
We are the next stage (to Bowood). Lord Lansdowne’s guests commonly
come here _dilated and disordered_ with high living.”

In another letter conveying a similar invitation he says, with his usual bitterness and injustice as regards America:

“Be brave my dear lady. Hoist the American flag. Barbarise your
manners. _Dissyntax_ your language. Fling a thick mantle over your
lively spirits, and become the fust of American women. You will always
remain a bright vision in my recollection. Do not forget me. Call me
Butler’s Hudibras. Any appellation provided I am not forgotten.”

Among the residents in Clifton and at Stoke Bishop over the Downs I had many kind friends, some of whom helped me essentially in my work by placing tickets for hospitals and money in my hands for the poor. One of these whom I specially recall with gratitude was that ever zealous moral reformer, Mrs. Woolcott Browne, who is still working bravely with her daughter for many good causes in London. I must not write here without permission of the many others whose names have not come before the public, but whose affectionate consideration made my life very pleasant, and whom I ever remember with tender regard. Of one excellent couple I may venture to speak,—Dr. and Mrs. Goodeve of Cook’s Folly. Mrs. Goodeve herself told me their singular and beautiful story, and since she and her husband are now both dead, I think I may allow myself to repeat it.

Dr. Goodeve was a young medical man who had just married, and was going out to seek his fortune in India, having no prospects in England. As part of their honeymoon holiday the young couple went to visit Cook’s Folly; then a small, half-ruinous, castellated building, standing in a spot of extraordinary beauty over the Avon, looking down the Bristol Channel. As they were descending the turret-stair and taking, as they thought, a last look on the loveliness of England, the young wife perceived that her husband’s head was bent down in deep depression. She laid her hand on his shoulder and whispered “Never mind, Harry? You shall make a fortune in India and we will come back and buy Cook’s Folly.”

They went to Calcutta and were there most kindly received by a gentleman named Hurry, who edited a newspaper and whose own history had been strange and tragic. Started in his profession by his interest, Dr. Goodeve soon fell into good practice, and by degrees became a very successful physician, the founder (I believe) of the existing Medical College of Calcutta. Going on a shooting party, his face was most terribly shattered by a chance shot which threatened to prove mortal, but Mrs. Goodeve, without help or appliances, alone with him in a tent in a wild district, pulled him back to life. At last they returned to England, wealthy and respected by all, and bringing a splendid collection of Indian furniture and _curios_. The very week they landed, Cook’s Folly was advertised to be sold! They remembered it well,—went to see it,—bought it—and rebuilded it; making it a most charming and beautiful house. A peculiarity of its structure as remodelled by them was, that there was an entire suite of rooms,—a large library overlooking the river Avon, bedroom, bathroom and servant’s room,—all capable of being shut off from the rest of the house, by double doors, so that the occupant might be quite undisturbed. When everything was finished, and splendidly furnished, the Goodeves wrote to Mr. Hurry: “It is time for you to give up your paper and come home. You acted a father’s part to us when we went out first to India. Now come to us, and live as with your son and daughter.”

Mr. Hurry accepted the invitation and found waiting for him and his Indian servant the beautiful suite of rooms built for him, and the tenderest welcome. I saw him often seated by their fireside just as a father might have been. When the time came for him to die, Mrs. Goodeve nursed him with such devoted care, and strained herself so much in lifting and helping him, that her own health was irretrievably injured, and she died not long afterwards.

I could write more of Bristol and Clifton friends, high and low, but must draw this chapter of my life to a close. I went to Bristol an utter stranger, knowing no human being there. I left it after a few years all peopled, as it seemed to me, with kind souls; and without one single remembrance of anything else but kindness received there either from gentle or simple.

CHAPTER
XIV.
_ITALY. 1857–1879._