Books: The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford
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Mark Rutherford >> The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford
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In conversation I was always a bad hand at assuming a position contrary
to the one assumed by the person to whom I might be talking--nor could
I persistently maintain my own position if it happened to be opposed.
I always rather tried to see as my opponent saw, and to discover how
much there was in him with which I could sympathise. I therefore
assented weakly to Theresa, and she seemed disappointed. Dinner was
just over; she got up and rang the bell and went out of the room.
I found my work very hard, and some of it even loathsome. Particularly
loathsome was that part of it which brought me into contact with the
trade. I had to sell books to the booksellers' assistants, and I had
to collect books myself. These duties are usually undertaken in large
establishments by men specially trained, who receive a low rate of
wages and who are rather a rough set. It was totally different work to
anything I had ever had to do before, and I suffered as a man with soft
hands would suffer who was suddenly called to be a blacksmith or a
dock-labourer.
Specially, too, did I miss the country. London lay round me like a
mausoleum. I got into the habit of rising very early in the morning
and walking out to Kensington Gardens and back before breakfast,
varying my route occasionally so as even to reach Battersea Bridge,
which was always a favourite spot with me. Kensington Gardens and
Battersea Bridge were poor substitutes for the downs, and for the level
stretch by the river towards the sea where I first saw Mardon, but we
make too much of circumstances, and the very pressure of London
produced a sensibility to whatever loveliness could be apprehended
there, which was absent when loveliness was always around me. The
stars seen in Oxford Street late one night; a sunset one summer evening
from Lambeth pier; and, above everything, Piccadilly very early one
summer morning, abide with me still, when much that was more romantic
has been forgotten. On the whole, I was not unhappy. The constant
outward occupation prevented any eating of the heart or undue brooding
over problems which were insoluble, at least for my intellect, and on
that very account fascinated me the more.
I do not think that Wollaston cared much for me personally. He was a
curious compound, materialistic yet impulsive, and for ever drawn to
some new thing; without any love for anybody particularly, as far as I
could see, and yet with much more general kindness and philanthropy
than many a man possessing much stronger sympathies and antipathies.
There was no holy of holies in him, into which one or two of the elect
could occasionally be admitted and feel God to be there. He was no
temple, but rather a comfortable, hospitable house open to all friends,
well furnished with books and pictures, and free to every guest from
garret to cellar. He had "liberal" notions about the relationship
between the sexes. Not that he was a libertine, but he disbelieved in
marriage, excepting for so long as husband and wife are a necessity to
one another. If one should find the other uninteresting, or somebody
else more interesting, he thought there ought to be a separation.
All this I soon learned from him, for he was communicative without any
reserve. His treatment of his niece was peculiar. He would talk on
all kinds of subjects before her, for he had a theory that she ought to
receive precisely the same social training as men, and should know just
what men knew. He was never coarse, but on the other hand he would say
things to her in my presence which brought a flame into my face. What
the evil consequences of this might be, I could not at once foresee,
but one good result obviously was, that in his house there was nothing
of that execrable practice of talking down to women; there was no
change of level when women were present.
One day he began to speak about a novel which everybody was reading
then, and I happened to say that I wished people who wrote novels would
not write as if love were the very centre and sum of human existence.
A man's life was made up of so much besides love, and yet novelists
were never weary of repeating the same story, telling it over and over
again in a hundred different forms.
"I do not agree with you," said Theresa. "I disagree with you utterly.
I dislike foolish, inane sentiment--it makes me sick; but I do believe,
in the first place, that no man was ever good for anything who has not
been devoured, I was going to say, by a great devotion to a woman. The
lives of your great men are as much the history of women whom they
adored as of themselves. Dante, Byron, Shelley, it is the same with
all of them, and there is no mistake about it; it is the great fact of
life. What would Shakespeare be without it? and Shakespeare is life.
A man, worthy to be named a man, will find the fact of love perpetually
confronting him till he reaches old age, and if he be not ruined by
worldliness or dissipation, will be troubled by it when he is fifty as
much as when he was twenty-five. It is the subject of all subjects.
People abuse love, and think it the cause of half the mischief in the
world. It is the one thing that keeps the world straight, and if it
were not for that overpowering instinct, human nature would fall
asunder; would be the prey of inconceivable selfishness and vices, and
finally, there would be universal suicide. I did not intend to be
eloquent: I hate being eloquent. But you did not mean what you said;
you spoke from the head or teeth merely."
Theresa's little speech was delivered not with any heat of the blood.
There was no excitement in her grey eyes, nor did her cheek burn. Her
brain seemed to rule everything. This was an idea she had, and she
kindled over it because it was an idea. It was impossible, of course,
that she should say what she did without some movement of the organ in
her breast, but how much share this organ had in her utterances I never
could make out. How much was due to the interest which she as a
looker-on felt in men and women, and how much was due to herself as a
woman, was always a mystery to me.
She was fond of music, and occasionally I asked her to play to me. She
had a great contempt for bungling, and not being a professional player,
she never would try a piece in my presence of which she was not
perfectly master. She particularly liked to play Mozart, and on my
asking her once to play a piece of Beethoven, she turned round upon me
and said: "You like Beethoven best. I knew you would. He encourages
a luxurious revelling in the incomprehensible and indefinably sublime.
He is not good for you."
My work was so hard, and the hours were so long, that I had little or
no time for reading, nor for thinking either, except so far as
Wollaston and Theresa made me think. Wollaston himself took rather to
science, although he was not scientific, and made a good deal of what
he called psychology. He was not very profound, but he had picked up a
few phrases, or if this word is too harsh, a few ideas about
metaphysical matters from authors who contemned metaphysics, and with
these he was perfectly satisfied. A stranger listening to him would at
first consider him well read, but would soon be undeceived, and would
find that these ideas were acquired long ago; that he had never gone
behind or below them, and that they had never fructified in him, but
were like hard stones, which he rattled in his pocket. He was totally
unlike Mardon. Mardon, although he would have agreed with many of
Wollaston's results, differed entirely from him in the processes by
which they had been brought about; and a mental comparison of the two
often told me what I had been told over and over again, that what we
believe is not of so much importance as the path by which we travel to
it.
Theresa too, like her uncle, eschewed metaphysics, but she was a woman,
and a woman's impulses supplied in her the lack of those deeper
questionings, and at times prompted them. She was far more original
than he was, and was impatient of the narrowness of the circle in which
he moved. Her love of music, for example, was a thing incomprehensible
to him, and I do not remember that he ever sat for a quarter of an hour
really listening to it. He would read the newspaper or do anything
while she was playing. She never resented his inattention, except when
he made a noise, and then, without any rebuke, she would break off and
go away. This mode of treatment was the outcome of one of her
theories. She disbelieved altogether in punishment, except when it was
likely to do good, either to the person punished or to others. "A good
deal of punishment," she used to say, "is mere useless pain."
Both Theresa and her uncle were kind and human, and I endeavoured to my
utmost to repay them by working my hardest. My few hours of leisure
were sweet, and when I spent them with Wollaston and Theresa, were
interesting. I often asked myself why I found this mode of existence
more tolerable than any other I had hitherto enjoyed. I had, it is
true, an hour or two's unspeakable peace in the early morning, but, as
I have said, at nine my toil commenced, and, with a very brief interval
for meals, lasted till seven. After seven I was too tired to do
anything by myself, and could only keep awake if I happened to be in
company.
One reason certainly why I was content, was Theresa herself. She was a
constant study to me, and I could not for a long time obtain any
consistent idea of her. She was not a this or a that or the other.
She could not be summarily dismissed into any ordinary classification.
At first I was sure she was hard, but I found by the merest accident
that nearly all her earnings were given with utmost secrecy to support
a couple of poor relatives. Then I thought her self-conscious, but
this, when I came to think upon it, seemed a mere word. She was one of
those women, and very rare they are, who deal in ideas, and
reflectiveness must be self-conscious. At times she appeared
passionless, so completely did her intellect dominate, and so superior
was she to all the little arts and weaknesses of women; but this was a
criticism she contradicted continually.
There was very little society at the Wollastons', but occasionally a
few friends called. One evening there was a little party, and the
conversation flagged. Theresa said that it was a great mistake to
bring people together with nothing special to do but talk. Nothing is
more tedious than to be in a company assembled for no particular
reason, and every host, if he asks more than two persons at the
outside, ought to provide some entertainment. Talking is worth nothing
unless it is perfectly spontaneous, and it cannot be spontaneous if
there are sudden and blank silences, and nobody can think of a fresh
departure. The master of the house is bound to do something. He ought
to hire a Punch and Judy show, or get up a dance.
This spice of bitterness and flavour of rudeness was altogether
characteristic of Theresa, and somebody resented it by reminding her
that SHE was the hostess. "Of course," she replied, "that is why I
said it: what shall I do?" One of her gifts was memory, and her
friends cried out at once that she should recite something. She
hesitated a little, and then throwing herself back in her chair, began
The Lass of Lochroyan. At first she was rather diffident, but she
gathered strength as she went on. There is a passage in the middle of
the poem in which Lord Gregory's cruel mother pretends she is Lord
Gregory, and refuses to recognise his former love, Annie of Lochroyan,
as she stands outside his tower. The mother calls to Annie from the
inside -
"Gin thou be Annie of Lochroyan
(As I trow thou binna she),
Now tell me some of the love tokens
That passed between thee and me."
"Oh, dinna ye mind, Lord Gregory,
As we sat at the wine,
We changed the rings frae our fingers,
And I can show thee thine?
"Oh, yours was gude, and gude enough,
But aye the best was mine;
For yours was o' the gude red gowd,
BUT MINE O' THE DIAMOND FINE."
The last verse is as noble as anything in any ballad in the English
language, and I thought that when Theresa was half way through it her
voice shook a good deal. There was a glass of flowers standing near
her, and just as she came to an end her arm moved and the glass was in
a moment on the floor, shivered into twenty pieces. I happened to be
watching her, and felt perfectly sure that the movement of her arm was
not accidental, and that her intention was to conceal, by the apparent
mishap, an emotion which was increasing and becoming inconvenient. At
any rate, if that was her object it was perfectly accomplished, for the
recitation was abruptly terminated, there was general commiseration
over the shattered vase, and when the pieces were picked up. and order
was restored, it was nearly time to separate.
Two of my chief failings were forgetfulness and a want of thoroughness
in investigation. What misery have I not suffered from insufficient
presentation of a case to myself, and from prompt conviction of
insufficiency and inaccuracy by the person to whom I in turn presented
it! What misery have I not suffered from the discovery that explicit
directions to me had been overlooked or only half understood!
One day in particular, I had to take round a book to be "subscribed"
which Wollaston had just published--that is to say, I had to take a
copy to each of the leading booksellers to see how many they would
purchase. Some books are sold "thirteen as twelve," the thirteenth
book being given to the purchaser of twelve, and some are sold "twenty-
five as twenty-four." This book was to be sold "twenty-five as twenty-
four," according to Wollaston's orders. I subscribed it thirteen as
twelve. Wollaston was annoyed, as I could see, for I had to go over
all my work again, but in accordance with his fixed principles, he was
not out of temper.
It so happened that that same day he gave me some business
correspondence which I was to look through; and having looked through
it, I was to answer the last letter in the sense which he indicated. I
read the correspondence and wrote the letter for his signature. As
soon as he saw it, he pointed out to me that I had only half mastered
the facts, and that my letter was all wrong. This greatly disturbed
me, not only because I had vexed him and disappointed him, but because
it was renewed evidence of my weakness. I thought that if I was
incapable of getting to the bottom of such a very shallow complication
as this, of what value were any of my thinkings on more difficult
subjects, and I fell a prey to self-contempt and scepticism. Contempt
from those about us is hard to bear, but God help the poor wretch who
contemns himself.
How well I recollect the early walk on the following morning in
Kensington Gardens, the feeling of my own utter worthlessness, and the
longing for death as the cancellation of the blunder of my existence!
I went home, and after breakfast some proofs came from the printer of a
pamphlet which Wollaston had in hand. Without unfastening them, he
gave them to me, and said that as he had no time to read them himself,
I must go upstairs to Theresa's study and read them off with her.
Accordingly I went and began to read. She took the manuscript and I
took the proof. She read about a page, and then she suddenly stopped.
"Oh, Mr. Rutherford," she said, it, "what have you done? I heard my
uncle distinctly tell you to mark on the manuscript when it went to the
printer, that it was to be printed in demy octavo, and you have marked
it twelvemo."
I had had little sleep that night, I was exhausted with my early walk,
and suddenly the room seemed to fade from me and I fainted. When I
came to myself, I found that Theresa had not sought for any help; she
had done all that ought to be done. She had unfastened my collar and
had sponged my face with cold water. The first thing I saw as I
gradually recovered myself, was her eyes looking steadily at me as she
stood over me, and I felt her hand upon my head. When she was sure I
was coming to myself, she held off and sat down in her chair.
I was a little hysterical, and after the fit was over I broke loose.
With a storm of tears, I laid open all my heart. I told her how
nothing I had ever attempted had succeeded; that I had never even been
able to attain that degree of satisfaction with myself and my own
conclusions, without which a man cannot live; and that now I found I
was useless, even to the best friends I had ever known, and that the
meanest clerk in the city would serve them better than I did. I was
beside myself, and I threw myself on my knees, burying my face in
Theresa's lap and sobbing convulsively. She did not repel me, but she
gently passed her fingers through my hair. Oh, the transport of that
touch! It was as if water had been poured on a burnt hand, or some
miraculous Messiah had soothed the delirium of a fever-stricken
sufferer, and replaced his visions of torment with dreams of Paradise.
She gently lifted me up, and as I rose I saw her eyes too were wet.
"My poor friend," she said, "I cannot talk to you now. You are not
strong enough, and for that matter, nor am I, but let me say this to
you, that you are altogether mistaken about yourself. The meanest
clerk in the city could not take your place here." There was just a
slight emphasis I thought upon the word "here." "Now" she said, "you
had better go. I will see about the pamphlet."
I went out mechanically, and I anticipate my story so far as to say
that, two days after, another proof came in the proper form. I went to
the printer to offer to pay for setting it up afresh, and was told that
Miss Wollaston had been there and had paid herself for the
rectification of the mistake, giving special injunctions that no notice
of it was to be given to her uncle. I should like to add one more
beatitude to those of the gospels and to say, Blessed are they who heal
us of self-despisings. Of all services which can be done to man, I
know of none more precious.
When I went back to my work I worshipped Theresa, and was entirely
overcome with unhesitating, absorbing love for her. I saw no thing
more of her that day nor the next day. Her uncle told me that she had
gone into the country, and that probably she would not return for some
time, as she had purposed paying a lengthened visit to a friend at a
distance. I had a mind to write to her; but I felt as I have often
felt before in great crises, a restraint which was gentle and
incomprehensible, but nevertheless unmistakable. I suppose it is not
what would be called conscience, as conscience is supposed to decide
solely between right and wrong, but it was none the less peremptory,
although its voice was so soft and low that it might easily have been
overlooked. Over and over again, when I have purposed doing a thing,
have I been impeded or arrested by this same silent monitor, and never
have I known its warnings to be the mere false alarms of fancy.
After a time, the thought of Mary recurred to me. I was distressed to
find that, in the very height of my love for Theresa, my love for Mary
continued unabated. Had it been otherwise, had my affection for Mary
grown dim, I should not have been so much perplexed, but it did not.
It may be ignominious to confess it, but so it was; I simply record the
fact.
I had not seen Mardon since that last memorable evening at his house,
but one day as I was sitting in the shop, who should walk it in but
Mary herself. The meeting, although strange, was easily explained.
Her father was ill, and could do nothing but read. Wollaston published
free-thinking books, and Mardon had noticed in an advertisement the
name of a book which he particularly wished to see. Accordingly he
sent Mary for it. She pressed me very much to call on him. He had
talked about me a good deal, and had written to me at the last address
he knew, but the letter had been returned through the dead-letter
office.
It was a week before I could go, and when did go, I found him much
worse than I had imagined him to be. There was no virulent disease of
any particular organ, but he was slowly wasting away from atrophy, and
he knew, or thought he knew, he should not recover. But he was
perfectly self-possessed.
"With regard to immortality," he said, "I never know what men mean by
it. WHAT self is it which is to be immortal? Is it really desired by
anybody that he should continue to exist for ever with his present
limitations and failings? Yet if these are not continued, the man does
not continue, but something else, a totally different person. I
believe in the survival of life and thought. People think is not
enough. They say they want the survival of their personality. It is
very difficult to express any conjecture upon the matter, especially
now when I am weak, and I have no system--nothing but surmises. One
thing I am sure of--that a man ought to rid himself as much as possible
of the miserable egotism which is so anxious about self, and should be
more and more anxious about the Universal."
Mardon grew slowly worse. The winter was coming on, and as the
temperature fell and the days grew darker, he declined. With all his
heroism and hardness he had a weakness or two, and one was, that he did
not want to die in London or be buried there. So we got him down to
Sandgate near Hythe, and procured lodging for him close to the sea, so
that he could lie in bed and watch the sun and moon rise over the
water. Mary, of course, remained with him, and I returned to London.
Towards the end of November I got a letter, to tell me that if I wished
to see him alive again, I must go down at once. I went that day, and I
found that the doctor had been and had said that before the morning the
end must come. Mardon was perfectly conscious, in no pain, and quite
calm. He was just able to speak. When I went into his bedroom, he
smiled, and without any preface or introduction he said: "Learn not to
be over-anxious about meeting troubles and solving difficulties which
time will meet and solve for you." Excepting to ask for water, I don't
think he spoke again.
All that night Mary and I watched in that topmost garret looking out
over the ocean. It was a night entirely unclouded, and the moon was at
the full. Towards daybreak her father moaned a little, then became
quite quiet, and just as the dawn was changing to sunrise, he passed
away. What a sunrise it was! For about half-an-hour before the sun
actually appeared, the perfectly smooth water was one mass of gently
heaving opaline lustre. Not a sound was to be heard, and over in the
south-east hung the planet Venus. Death was in the chamber, but the
surpassing splendour of the pageant outside arrested us, and we sat
awed and silent. Not till the first burning-point of the great orb
itself emerged above the horizon, not till the day awoke with its
brightness and brought with it the sounds of the day and its cares, did
we give way to our grief.
It was impossible for me to stay. It was not that I was obliged to get
back to my work in London, but I felt that Mary would far rather be
alone, and that it would not be proper for me to remain. The woman of
the house in which the lodgings were was very kind, and promised to do
all that was necessary. It was arranged that I should come down again
to the funeral.
So I went back to London. Before I had got twenty miles on my journey
the glory of a few hours had turned into autumn storm. The rain came
down in torrents, and the wind rushed across the country in great
blasts, stripping the trees, and driving over the sky with hurricane
speed great masses of continuous cloud, which mingled earth and heaven.
I thought of all the ships which were on the sea in the night, sailing
under the serene stars which I had seen rise and set; I thought of
Mardon lying dead, and I thought of Mary. The simultaneous passage
through great emotions welds souls, and begets the strongest of all
forms of love. Those who have sobbed together over a dead friend, who
have held one another's hands in that dread hour, feel a bond of
sympathy, pure and sacred, which nothing can dissolve.
I went to the funeral as appointed. There was some little difficulty
about it, for Mary, who knew her father so well, was unconquerably
reluctant that an inconsistency should crown the career of one who, all
through life, had been so completely self-accordant. She could not
bear that he should be buried with a ceremony which he despised, and
she was altogether free from that weakness which induces a compliance
with the rites of the Church from persons who avow themselves sceptics.
At last a burying-ground was found, belonging to a little half-forsaken
Unitarian chapel; and there Mardon was laid. A few friends came from
London, one of whom had been a Unitarian minister, and he "conducted
the service," such as it was. It was of the simplest kind. The body
was taken to the side of the grave, and before it was lowered a few
words were said, calling to mind all the virtues of him whom we had
lost. These the speaker presented to us with much power and sympathy.
He did not merely catalogue a disconnected string of excellences, but
he seemed to plant himself in the central point of Mardon's nature, and
to see from what it radiated.
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