Books: The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford
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Mark Rutherford >> The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford
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"A CHRISTIAN TRADESMAN."
I had not the least doubt as to the authorship of this precious
epistle. Mr. Snale's hand was apparent in every word. He was fond of
making religious verses, and once we were compelled to hear the Sunday-
school children sing a hymn which he had composed. The two lines of
poetry were undoubtedly his. Furthermore, although he had been a
chapel-goer all his life, he muddled, invariably, passages from the
Bible. They had no definite meaning for him, and there was nothing,
consequently, to prevent his tacking the end of one verse to the
beginning of another. Mr. Snale, too, continually "failed to see."
Where he got the phrase I do not know, but he liked it, and was always
repeating it. However, I had no external evidence that it was he who
was my enemy, and I held my peace. I was supported at the public
meeting by a speaker from the body of the hall whom I had never seen
before. He spoke remarkably well, was evidently educated, and I was
rather curious about him.
It was my custom on Saturdays to go out for the whole of the day by the
river, seawards, to prepare for the Sunday. I was coming home rather
tired, when I met this same man against a stile. He bade me good-
evening, and then proceeded to thank me for my speech, saying many
complimentary things about it. I asked who it was to whom I had the
honour of talking, and he told me he was Edward Gibbon Mardon. "It was
Edward Gibson Mardon once, sir," he said, smilingly. "Gibson was the
name of a rich old aunt who was expected to do something for me, but I
disliked her, and never went near her. I did not see why I should be
ticketed with her label, and as Edward Gibson was very much like Edward
Gibbon, the immortal author of the Decline and Fall, I dropped the 's'
and stuck in a 'b.' I am nothing but a compositor on the Sentinel, and
Saturday afternoon, after the paper is out, is a holiday for me, unless
there is any reporting to do, for I have to turn my attention to that
occasionally."
Mr. Edward Gibbon Mardon, I observed, was slightly built, rather short,
and had scanty whiskers which developed into a little thicker tuft on
his chin. His eyes were pure blue, like the blue of the speedwell.
They were not piercing, but perfectly transparent, indicative of a
character which, if it possessed no particular creative power, would
not permit self-deception. They were not the eyes of a prophet, but of
a man who would not be satisfied with letting a half-known thing alone
and saying he believed it. His lips were thin, but not compressed into
bitterness; and above everything there was in his face a perfectly
legible frankness, contrasting pleasantly with the doubtfulness of most
of the faces I knew. I expressed my gratitude to him for his kind
opinion, and as we loitered he said:
"Sorry to see that attack upon you in the Sentinel. I suppose you are
aware it was Snale's. Everybody could tell that who knows the man."
"If it is Mr. Snale's, I am very sorry."
"It is Snale's. He is a contemptible cur and yet it is not his fault.
He has heard sermons about all sorts of supernatural subjects for
thirty years, and he has never once been warned against meanness, so of
course he supposes that supernatural subjects are everything and
meanness is nothing. But I will not detain you any longer now, for you
are busy. Good-night, sir."
This was rather abrupt and disappointing. However, I was much absorbed
in the morrow, and passed on.
Although I despised Snale, his letter was the beginning of a great
trouble to me. I had now been preaching for many months, and had met
with no response whatever. Occasionally a stranger or two visited the
chapel, and with what eager eyes did I not watch for them on the next
Sunday, but none of them came twice. It was amazing to me that I could
pour out myself as I did--poor although I knew that self to be--and yet
make so little impression. Not one man or woman seemed any different
because of anything I had said or done, and not a soul kindled at any
word of mine, no matter with what earnestness it might be charged. How
I groaned over my incapacity to stir in my people any participation in
my thoughts or care for them!
Looking at the history of those days now from a distance of years,
everything assumes its proper proportion. I was at work, it is true,
amongst those who were exceptionally hard and worldly, but I was
seeking amongst men (to put it in orthodox language) what I ought to
have sought with God alone. In other, and perhaps plainer phrase, I
was expecting from men a sympathy which proceeds from the Invisible
only. Sometimes, indeed, it manifests itself in the long-postponed
justice of time, but more frequently it is nothing more and nothing
less than a consciousness of approval by the Unseen, a peace
unspeakable, which is bestowed on us when self is suppressed.
I did not know then how little one man can change another, and what
immense and persistent efforts are necessary--efforts which seldom
succeed except in childhood--to accomplish anything but the most
superficial alteration of character. Stories are told of sudden
conversions, and of course if a poor simple creature can be brought to
believe that hell-fire awaits him as the certain penalty of his
misdeeds, he will cease to do them; but this is no real conversion, for
essentially he remains pretty much the same kind of being that he was
before.
I remember while this mood was on me, that I was much struck with the
absolute loneliness of Jesus, and with His horror of that death upon
the cross. He was young and full of enthusiastic hope, but when He
died He had found hardly anything but misunderstanding. He had written
nothing, so that He could not expect that His life would live after
Him. Nevertheless His confidence in His own errand had risen so high,
that He had not hesitated to proclaim Himself the Messiah: not the
Messiah the Jews were expecting, but still the Messiah. I dreamed over
His walks by the lake, over the deeper solitude of His last visit to
Jerusalem, and over the gloom of that awful Friday afternoon.
The hold which He has upon us is easily explained, apart from the
dignity of His recorded sayings and the purity of His life. There is
no Saviour for us like the hero who has passed triumphantly through the
distress which troubles US. Salvation is the spectacle of a victory by
another over foes like our own. The story of Jesus is the story of the
poor and forgotten. He is not the Saviour for the rich and prosperous,
for they want no Saviour. The healthy, active, and well-to-do need Him
not, and require nothing more than is given by their own health and
prosperity. But every one who has walked in sadness because his
destiny has not fitted his aspirations; every one who, having no
opportunity to lift himself out of his little narrow town or village
circle of acquaintances, has thirsted for something beyond what they
could give him; everybody who, with nothing but a dull, daily round of
mechanical routine before him, would welcome death, if it were
martyrdom for a cause; every humblest creature, in the obscurity of
great cities or remote hamlets, who silently does his or her duty
without recognition--all these turn to Jesus, and find themselves in
Him. He died, faithful to the end, with infinitely higher hopes,
purposes, and capacity than mine, and with almost no promise of
anything to come of them.
Something of this kind I preached one Sunday, more as a relief to
myself than for any other reason. Mardon was there, and with him a
girl whom I had not seen before. My sight is rather short, and I could
not very well tell what she was like. After the service was over he
waited for me, and said he had done so to ask me if I would pay him a
visit on Monday evening. I promised to do so, and accordingly went.
I found him living in a small brick-built cottage near the outskirts of
the town, the rental of which I should suppose would be about seven or
eight pounds a year. There was a patch of ground in front and a little
garden behind--a kind of narrow strip about fifty feet long, separated
from the other little strips by iron hurdles. Mardon had tried to keep
his garden in order, and had succeeded, but his neighbour was
disorderly, and had allowed weeds to grow, blacking bottles and old tin
cans to accumulate, so that whatever pleasure Mardon's labours might
have afforded was somewhat spoiled.
He himself came to the door when I knocked, and I was shown into a kind
of sitting-room with a round table in the middle and furnished with
Windsor chairs, two arm-chairs of the same kind standing on either side
the fireplace. Against the window was a smaller table with a green
baize tablecloth, and about half-a-dozen plants stood on the window-
sill, serving as a screen. In the recess on one side of the fireplace
was a cupboard, upon the top of which stood a tea-caddy, a workbox,
some tumblers, and a decanter full of water; the other side being
filled with a bookcase and books. There were two or three pictures on
the walls; one was a portrait of Voltaire, another of Lord Bacon, and a
third was Albert Durer's St. Jerome. This latter was an heirloom, and
greatly prized I could perceive, as it was hung in the place of honour
over the mantelpiece.
After some little introductory talk, the same girl whom I had noticed
with Mardon at the chapel came in, and I was introduced to her as his
only daughter Mary. She began to busy herself at once in getting the
tea. She was under the average height for a woman, and delicately
built. Her head was small, but the neck was long. Her hair was brown,
of a peculiarly lustrous tint, partly due to nature, but also to a
looseness of arrangement and a most diligent use of the brush, so that
the light fell not upon a dead compact mass, but upon myriads of
individual hairs, each of which reflected the light. Her eyes, so far
as I could make out, were a kind of greenish grey, but the eyelashes
were long, so that it was difficult exactly to discover what was
underneath them. The hands were small, and the whole figure
exquisitely graceful; the plain black dress, which she wore fastened
right up to the throat, suiting her to perfection. Her face, as I
first thought, did not seem indicative of strength. The lips were
thin, but not straight, the upper lip showing a remarkable curve in it.
Nor was it a handsome face. The complexion was not sufficiently
transparent, nor were the features regular.
During tea she spoke very little, but I noticed one peculiarity about
her manner of talking, and that was its perfect simplicity. There was
no sort of effort or strain in anything she said, no attempt by
emphasis of words to make up for the weakness of thought, and no
compliance with that vulgar and most disagreeable habit of using
intense language to describe what is not intense in itself. Her yea
was yea, and her no, no. I observed also that she spoke without
disguise, although she was not rude. The manners of the cultivated
classes are sometimes very charming, and more particularly their
courtesy, which puts the guest so much at his ease, and constrains him
to believe that an almost personal interest is taken in his affairs,
but after a time it becomes wearisome. It is felt to be nothing but
courtesy, the result of a rule of conduct uniform for all, and verging
very closely upon hypocrisy. We long rather for plainness of speech,
for some intimation of the person with whom we are talking, and that
the mask and gloves may be laid aside.
Tea being over, Miss Mardon cleared away the tea-things, and presently
came back again. She took one of the arm-chairs by the side of the
fireplace, which her father had reserved for her, and while he and I
were talking, she sat with her head leaning a little sideways on the
back of the chair. I could just discern that her feet, which rested on
the stool, were very diminutive, like her hands.
The talk with Mardon turned upon the chapel. I had begun it by saying
that I had noticed him there on the Sunday just mentioned. He then
explained why he never went to any place of worship. A purely orthodox
preacher it was, of course, impossible for him to hear, but he doubted
also the efficacy of preaching. What could be the use of it, supposing
the preacher no longer to be a believer in the common creeds? If he
turns himself into a mere lecturer on all sorts of topics, he does
nothing more than books do, and they do it much better. He must base
himself upon the Bible, and above all upon Christ, and how can he base
himself upon a myth? We do not know that Christ ever lived, or that if
He lived His life was anything like what is attributed to Him. A mere
juxtaposition of the Gospels shows how the accounts of His words and
deeds differ according to the tradition followed by each of His
biographers.
I interrupted Mardon at this point by saying that it did not matter
whether Christ actually existed or not. What the four evangelists
recorded was eternally true, and the Christ-idea was true whether it
was ever incarnated or not in a being bearing His name.
"Pardon me," said Mardon, "but it does very much matter. It is all the
matter whether we are dealing with a dream or with reality. I can
dream about a man's dying on the cross in homage to what he believed,
but I would not perhaps die there myself; and when I suffer from
hesitation whether I ought to sacrifice myself for the truth, it is of
immense assistance to me to know that a greater sacrifice has been made
before me--that a greater sacrifice is possible. To know that somebody
has poetically imagined that it is possible, and has very likely been
altogether incapable of its achievement, is no help. Moreover, the
commonplaces which even the most freethinking of Unitarians seem to
consider as axiomatic, are to me far from certain, and even
unthinkable. For example, they are always talking about the
omnipotence of God. But power even of the supremest kind necessarily
implies an object--that is to say, resistance. Without an object which
resists it, it would be a blank, and what, then, is the meaning of
omnipotence? It is not that it is merely inconceivable; it is
nonsense, and so are all these abstract, illimitable, self-annihilative
attributes of which God is made up."
This negative criticism, in which Mardon greatly excelled, was all new
to me, and I had no reply to make. He had a sledge-hammer way of
expressing himself, while I, on the contrary, always required time to
bring into shape what I saw. Just then I saw nothing; I was stunned,
bewildered, out of the sphere of my own thoughts, and pained at the
roughness with which he treated what I had cherished.
I was presently relieved, however, of further reflection by Mardon's
asking his daughter whether her face was better. It turned out that
all the afternoon and evening she had suffered greatly from neuralgia.
She had said nothing about it while I was there, but had behaved with
cheerfulness and freedom. Mentally I had accused her of slightness,
and inability to talk upon the subjects which interested Mardon and
myself; but when I knew she had been in torture all the time, my
opinion was altered. I thought how rash I had been in judging her as I
continually judged other people, without being aware of everything they
had to pass through; and I thought, too, that if I had a fit of
neuralgia, everybody near me would know it, and be almost as much
annoyed by me as I myself should be by the pain.
It is curious, also, that when thus proclaiming my troubles I often
considered. my eloquence meritorious, or, at least, a kind of talent
for which I ought to praise God, contemning rather my silent friends as
something nearer than myself to the expressionless animals. To parade
my toothache, describing it with unusual adjectives, making it felt by
all the company in which I might happen to be, was to me an assertion
of my superior nature. But, looking at Mary, and thinking about her as
I walked home, I perceived that her ability to be quiet, to subdue
herself, to resist the temptation for a whole evening of drawing
attention to herself by telling us what she was enduring, was heroism,
and that my contrary tendency was pitiful vanity. I perceived that
such virtues as patience and self-denial--which, clad in russet dress,
I had often passed by unnoticed when I had found them amongst the poor
or the humble--were more precious and more ennobling to their possessor
than poetic yearnings, or the power to propound rhetorically to the
world my grievances or agonies.
Miss Mardon's face was getting worse, and as by this time it was late,
I stayed but a little while longer.
CHAPTER V--MISS ARBOUR
For some months I continued without much change in my monotonous
existence. I did not see Mardon often, for I rather dreaded him. I
could not resist him, and I shrank from what I saw to be inevitably
true when I talked to him. I can hardly say it was cowardice. Those
may call it cowardice to whom all associations are nothing, and to whom
beliefs are no more than matters of indifferent research; but as for
me, Mardon's talk darkened my days and nights. I never could
understand the light manner in which people will discuss the gravest
questions, such as God and the immortality of the soul. They gossip
about them over their tea, write and read review articles about them,
and seem to consider affirmation or negation of no more practical
importance than the conformation of a beetle. With me the struggle to
retain as much as I could of my creed was tremendous. The dissolution
of Jesus into mythologic vapour was nothing less than the death of a
friend dearer to me then than any other friend whom I knew.
But the worst stroke of all was that which fell upon the doctrine of a
life beyond the grave. In theory I had long despised the notion that
we should govern our conduct here by hope of reward or fear of
punishment hereafter. But under Mardon's remorseless criticism, when
he insisted on asking for the where and how, and pointed out that all
attempts to say where and how ended in nonsense, my hope began to fail,
and I was surprised to find myself incapable of living with proper
serenity if there was nothing but blank darkness before me at the end
of a few years.
As I got older I became aware of the folly of this perpetual reaching
after the future, and of drawing from to-morrow, and from to-morrow
only, a reason for the joyfulness of to-day. I learned, when, alas! it
was almost too late, to live in each moment as it passed over my head,
believing that the sun as it is now rising is as good as it will ever
be, and blinding myself as much as possible to what may follow. But
when I was young I was the victim of that illusion, implanted for some
purpose or other in us by Nature, which causes us, on the brightest
morning in June, to think immediately of a brighter morning which is to
come in July. I say nothing, now, for or against the doctrine of
immortality. All I say is, that men have been happy without it, even
under the pressure of disaster, and that to make immortality a sole
spring of action here is an exaggeration of the folly which deludes us
all through life with endless expectation, and leaves us at death
without the thorough enjoyment of a single hour.
So I shrank from Mardon, but none the less did the process of
excavation go on. It often happens that a man loses faith without
knowing it. Silently the foundation is sapped while the building
stands fronting the sun, as solid to all appearance as when it was
first turned out of the builder's hands, but at last it falls suddenly
with a crash. It was so at this time with a personal relationship of
mine, about which I have hitherto said nothing.
Years ago, before I went to college, and when I was a teacher in the
Sunday-school, I had fallen in love with one of my fellow-teachers, and
we became engaged. She was the daughter of one of the deacons. She
had a smiling, pretty, vivacious face; was always somehow foremost in
school treats, picnics, and chapel-work, and she had a kind of piquant
manner, which to many men is more ensnaring than beauty. She never
read anything; she was too restless and fond of outward activity for
that, and no questions about orthodoxy or heresy ever troubled her
head. We continued our correspondence regularly after my appointment
as minister, and her friends, I knew, were looking to me to fix a day
for marriage. But although we had been writing to one another as
affectionately as usual, a revolution had taken place. I was quite
unconscious of it, for we had been betrothed for so long that I never
once considered the possibility of any rupture.
One Monday morning, however, I had a letter from her. It was not often
that she wrote on Sunday, as she had a religious prejudice against
writing letters on that day. However, this was urgent, for it was to
tell me that an aunt of hers who was staying at her father's was just
dead, and that her uncle wanted her to go and live with him for some
time, to look after the little children who were left behind. She said
that her dear aunt died a beautiful death, trusting in the merits of
the Redeemer. She also added, in a very delicate way, that she would
have agreed to go to her uncle's at once, but she had understood that
we were to be married soon, and she did not like to leave home for
long. She was evidently anxious for me to tell her what to do.
This letter, as I have said, came to me on Monday, when I was exhausted
by a more than usually desolate Sunday. I became at once aware that my
affection for her, if it ever really existed, had departed. I saw
before me the long days of wedded life with no sympathy, and I
shuddered when I thought what I should do with such a wife. How could
I take her to Mardon? How could I ask him to come to me? Strange to
say, my pride suffered most. I could have endured, I believe, even
discord at home, if only I could have had a woman whom I could present
to my friends, and whom they would admire. I was never unselfish in
the way in which women are, and yet I have always been more anxious
that people should respect my wife than respect me, and at any time
would withdraw myself into the shade if only she might be brought into
the light. This is nothing noble. It is an obscure form of egotism
probably, but anyhow, such always was my case.
It took but a very few hours to excite me to distraction. I had gone
on for years without realising what I saw now, and although in the
situation itself the change had been only gradual, it instantaneously
became intolerable. Yet I never was more incapable of acting. What
could I do? After such a long betrothal, to break loose from her would
be cruel and shameful. I could never hold up my head again, and in the
narrow circle of Independency, the whole affair would be known and my
prospects ruined.
Then other and subtler reasons presented themselves. No men can expect
ideal attachments. We must be satisfied with ordinary humanity.
Doubtless my friend with a lofty imagination would be better matched
with some Antigone who exists somewhere and whom he does not know. But
he wisely does not spend his life in vain search after her, but settles
down with the first decently sensible woman he finds in his own street,
and makes the best of his bargain. Besides, there was the power of use
and wont to be considered. Ellen had no vice of temper, no meanness,
and it was not improbable that she would be just as good a helpmeet for
me in time as I had a right to ask. Living together, we should mould
one another, and at last like one another. Marrying her, I should be
relieved from the insufferable solitude which was depressing me to
death, and should have a home.
So it has always been with me. When there has been the sternest need
of promptitude, I have seen such multitudes of arguments for and
against every course that I have despaired. I have at my command any
number of maxims, all of them good, but I am powerless to select the
one which ought to be applied.
A general principle, a fine saying, is nothing but a tool, and the wit
of man is shown not in possession of a well-furnished tool-chest, but
in the ability to pick out the proper instrument and use it.
I remained in this miserable condition for days, not venturing to
answer Ellen's letter, until at last I turned out for a walk. I have
often found that motion and change will bring light and resolution when
thinking will not. I started off in the morning down by the river, and
towards the sea, my favourite stroll. I went on and on under a leaden
sky, through the level, solitary, marshy meadows, where the river began
to lose itself in the ocean, and I wandered about there, struggling for
guidance. In my distress I actually knelt down and prayed, but the
heavens remained impassive as before, and I was half ashamed of what I
had done, as if it were a piece of hypocrisy.
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