THE AFTERMATH

or

GLEANINGS FROM A BUSY LIFE

CALLED UPON THE OUTER COVER

For Purposes of Sale

CALIBAN’S GUIDE TO LETTERS

By H. B.

NEW YORK

E. P. DUTTON & CO.

☞ FURTHER AND YET MORE WEIGHTY OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

“ ... We found it very tedious....”—The Evening German.

(The devil “we” did! “We” was once a private in a line regiment, drummed out for receiving stolen goods).

“ ... We cannot see what Dr. Caliban’s Guide is driving at.”—The Daily American. (It is driving at you).

“ ... What? Again?...”—The Edinburgh Review.

“ ... On y retrouve a chaque page l’orgueil et la sécheresse Anglaise....”—M. Hyppolite Durand, writing in Le Journal of Paris.

“ ... O Angleterre! Ile merveilleuse! C’est donc toujours de toi que sortiront la Justice et la Vérité....”—M. Charmant Reinach, writing in the Horreur of Geneva.

“ ... Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate.”—Signor Y. Ilabrimo (of Palermo), writing in the Tribuna of Rome.

“πολλὰ τὰ δεινα κὀυδεν ἀνθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει.”—M. Negridepopoulos de Worms, writing in The “τὸ δεινον” of Athens.

“!!משאל.”—The Banner of Israel.

“——!”—The Times of London.

TO

CATHERINE, MRS. CALIBAN,

BUT FOR WHOSE FRUITFUL SUGGESTION, EVER-READY SYMPATHY, POWERS OF OBSERVATION, KINDLY CRITICISM, UNFLINCHING COURAGE, CATHOLIC LEARNING, AND NONE THE LESS CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE,

THIS BOOK MIGHT AS WELL NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN;

IT IS DEDICATED

BY

HER OBEDIENT AND GRATEFUL SERVANT AND FRIEND IN AFFLICTION,

THE AUTHOR.

“O, Man; with what tremors as of earth-begettings hast thou not wrought, O, Man!—Yet—is it utterly indeed of thee—? Did there not toil in it also that World-Man, or haply was there not Some Other?... O, Man! knowest thou that word Some Other?”—Carlyle’s “Frederick the Great.”

Most of these sketches are reprinted from “The Speaker,” and appear in this form by the kind permission of its Editor.

ERRATA AND ADDENDA.

P. 19, line 14 (from the top), for “enteric” read “esoteric.”

P. 73, second footnote, for “Sophia, Lady Gowl,” read “Lady Sophia Gowl.”

P. 277 (line 5 from bottom), for “the charming prospect of such a bribe,” read “Bride.”

P. 456, delete all references to Black-mail, passim.

P. 510 (line 6 from top), for “Chou-fleur”, read “Chauffeur.”

Direction to Printer.—Please print hard, strong, clear, straight, neat, clean, and well. Try and avoid those little black smudges!

[Pg vii]

PREFACE.

This work needs no apology.

Its value to the English-speaking world is two-fold. It preserves for all time, in the form of a printed book, what might have been scattered in the sheets of ephemeral publications. It is so designed that these isolated monuments of prose and verse can be studied, absorbed, and, if necessary, copied by the young aspirant to literary honours.

Nothing is Good save the Useful, and it would have been sheer vanity to have published so small a selection, whatever its merit, unless it could be made to do Something, to achieve a Result in this strenuous modern world. It will not be the fault of the book, but of the reader, if no creative impulse follows its perusal, and the student will have but himself to blame if, with such standards before him, and so lucid and thorough an analysis of modern[viii] Literature and of its well-springs, he does not attain the goal to which the author would lead him.

The book will be found conveniently divided into sections representing the principal divisions of modern literary activity; each section will contain an introductory essay, which will form a practical guide to the subject with which it deals, and each will be adorned with one or more examples of the finished article, which, if the instructions be carefully followed, should soon be turned out without difficulty by any earnest and industrious scholar of average ability.

If the Work can raise the income of but one poor journalist, or produce earnings, no matter how insignificant, for but one of that great army which is now compelled to pay for the insertion of its compositions in the newspapers and magazines, the labour and organizing ability devoted to it will not have been in vain.

INTRODUCTION.

Few men have pursued more honourably, more usefully, or more successfully the career of letters than Thomas Caliban, D.D., of Winchelthorpe-on-Sea, near Portsmouth. Inheriting, as his name would imply, the grand old Huguenot strain, his father was a Merchant Taylor of the City of London, and principal manager of the Anglo-Chilian Bank; his mother the fifth daughter of K. Muller, Esq., of Brighton, a furniture dealer and reformer of note in the early forties.

The connection established between my own family and that of Dr. Caliban I purposely pass over as not germane to the ensuing pages, remarking only that the friendship, guidance, and intimacy of such a man will ever count among my chiefest treasures. Of him it may truly be written: “He maketh them to shine like Sharon; the waters are his in Ram-Shaîd, and Gilgath praiseth him.”

I could fill a volume of far greater contents than has this with the mere record of his every-day acts during the course of his long and active career. I must content myself, in this sketch, with a bare summary of his habitual deportment. He would rise[4] in the morning, and after a simple but orderly toilet would proceed to family prayers, terminating the same with a hymn, of which he would himself read each verse in turn, to be subsequently chanted by the assembled household. To this succeeded breakfast, which commonly consisted of ham, eggs, coffee, tea, toast, jam, and whatnot—in a word, the appurtenances of a decent table.

Breakfast over, he would light a pipe (for he did not regard indulgence in the weed as immoral, still less as un-Christian: the subtle word ἐπιείκεια, which he translated “sweet reasonableness,” was painted above his study door—it might have served for the motto of his whole life), he would light a pipe, I say, and walk round his garden, or, if it rained, visit the plants in his conservatory.

Before ten he would be in his study, seated at a large mahogany bureau, formerly the property of Sir Charles Henby, of North-chapel, and noon would still find him there, writing in his regular and legible hand the notes and manuscripts which have made him famous, or poring over an encyclopædia, the more conscientiously to review some book with which he had been entrusted.

After the hours so spent, it was his habit to take a turn in the fresh air, sometimes speaking to the gardener, and making the round of the beds; at others passing by the stables to visit his pony Bluebell, or to pat upon the head his faithful dog Ponto, now advanced in years and suffering somewhat from the mange.

[5]

To this light exercise succeeded luncheon, for him the most cheerful meal of the day. It was then that his liveliest conversation was heard, his closest friends entertained: the government, the misfortunes of foreign nations, the success of our fiscal policy, our maritime supremacy, the definition of the word “gentleman,” occasionally even a little bout of theology—a thousand subjects fell into the province of his genial criticism and extensive information; to each his sound judgment and ready apprehension added some new light; nor were the ladies of the family incompetent to follow the gifted table talk of their father, husband, brother, master,[1] and host.[2]

Until the last few years the hour after lunch was occupied with a stroll upon the terrace, but latterly he would consume it before the fire in sleep, from which the servants had orders to wake him by three o’clock. At this hour he would take his hat and stick and proceed into the town, where his sunny smile and friendly salute were familiar to high and low. A visit to the L.N.C. School, a few purchases, perhaps even a call upon the vicar (for Dr. Caliban was without prejudice—the broadest of men), would be the occupation of the afternoon, from which he returned to tea in the charming drawing-room of 48, Henderson Avenue.

It was now high time to revisit his study. He was[6] at work by six, and would write steadily till seven. Dinner, the pleasant conversation that succeeds it in our English homes, perhaps an innocent round game, occupied the evening till a gong for prayers announced the termination of the day. Dr. Caliban made it a point to remain the last up, to bolt the front door, to pour out his own whiskey, and to light his own candle before retiring. It was consonant with his exact and thoughtful nature, by the way, to have this candle of a patent sort, pierced down the middle to minimise the danger from falling grease; it was moreover surrounded by a detachable cylinder of glass.[3]

Such was the round of method which, day by day and week by week, built up the years of Dr. Caliban’s life; but life is made up of little things, and, to quote a fine phrase of his own: “It is the hourly habits of a man that build up his character.” He also said (in his address to the I. C. B. Y.): “Show me a man hour by hour in his own home, from the rising of the sun to his going down, and I will tell you what manner of man he is.” I have always remembered the epigram, and have acted upon it in the endeavour to portray the inner nature of its gifted author.

I should, however, be giving but an insufficient picture of Dr. Caliban were I to leave the reader with no further impression of his life work, or indeed of the causes which have produced this book.

His father had left him a decent competence. He[7] lay, therefore, under no necessity to toil for his living. Nevertheless, that sense of duty, “through which the eternal heavens are fresh and strong” (Wordsworth), moved him to something more than “the consumption of the fruits of the earth” (Horace). He preached voluntarily and without remuneration for some years to the churches in Cheltenham, and having married Miss Bignor, of Winchelthorpe-on-Sea, purchased a villa in that rising southern watering-place, and received a call to the congregation, which he accepted. He laboured there till his recent calamity.

I hardly know where to begin the recital of his numerous activities in the period of thirty-five years succeeding his marriage. With the pen he was indefatigable. A man more ποικίλος—or, as he put it, many-sided—perhaps never existed. There was little he would not touch, little upon which he was not consulted, and much in which, though anonymous, he was yet a leader.

He wrote regularly, in his earlier years, for The Seventh Monarchy, The Banner, The Christian, The Free Trader, Household Words, Good Words, The Quiver, Chatterbox, The Home Circle, and The Sunday Monitor. During the last twenty years his work has continually appeared in the Daily Telegraph, the Times, the Siècle, and the Tribuna. In the last two his work was translated.

His political effect was immense, and that though he never acceded to the repeated request that he would stand upon one side or the other as a candidate[8] for Parliament. He remained, on the contrary, to the end of his career, no more than president of a local association. It was as a speaker, writer, and preacher, that his ideas spread outwards; thousands certainly now use political phrases which they may imagine their own, but which undoubtedly sprang from his creative brain. He was perhaps not the first, but one of the first, to apply the term “Anglo-Saxon” to the English-speaking race—with which indeed he was personally connected through his relatives in New Mexico. The word “Empire” occurs in a sermon of his as early as 1869. He was contemporary with Mr. Lucas, if not before him, in the phrase, “Command of the sea”: and I find, in a letter to Mrs. Gorch, written long ago in 1873, the judgment that Protection was “no longer,” and the nationalization of land “not yet,” within “the sphere of practical politics.”

If his influence upon domestic politics was in part due to his agreement with the bulk of his fellow-citizens, his attitude in foreign affairs at least was all his own. Events have proved it wonderfully sound. A strenuous opponent of American slavery as a very young man—in 1860—he might be called, even at that age, the most prominent Abolitionist in Worcestershire, and worked indefatigably for the cause in so far as it concerned this country. A just and charitable man, he proved, after the victory of the North, one of the firmest supporters in the press of what he first termed “an Anglo-American entente.” Yet he was not for pressing matters. He would leave the[9] “gigantic daughter of the West” to choose her hour and time, confident in the wisdom of his daughter’s judgment, and he lived to see, before his calamity fell upon him, Mr. Hanna, Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Elihu Root, and Mr. Smoot occupying the positions they still adorn.

He comprehended Europe. It was he who prophesied of the Dual Monarchy (I believe in the Contemporary Review), that “the death of Francis Joseph would be the signal for a great upheaval”; he that applied to Italy the words “clericalism is the enemy”; and he that publicly advised the withdrawal of our national investments from the debt of Spain—“a nation in active decay.” He cared not a jot when his critics pointed out that Spanish fours had risen since his advice no less than 20 per cent., while our own consols had fallen by an equal amount. “The kingdom I serve,” he finely answered, “knows nothing of the price of stock.” And indeed the greater part of his fortune was in suburban rents, saving a small sum unfortunately adventured in Shanghai Telephones.

Russia he hated as the oppressor of Finland and Poland, for oppression he loathed and combatted wherever it appeared; nor had Mr. Arthur Balfour a stronger supporter than he when that statesman, armed only in the simple manliness of an English Christian and Freeman, combatted and destroyed the terrorism that stalked through Ireland.

Of Scandinavia he knew singularly little, but that little was in its favour; and as for the German[10] Empire, his stanzas to Prince Bismarck, and his sermon on the Emperor’s recent visit, are too well known to need any comment here. To Holland he was, until recently, attracted. Greece he despised.

Nowhere was this fine temper of unflinching courage and sterling common sense more apparent than in the great crisis of the Dreyfus case. No man stood up more boldly, or with less thought of consequence, for Truth and Justice in this country. He was not indeed the chairman of the great meeting in St. James’ Hall, but his peroration was the soul of that vast assemblage. “England will yet weather the storm....” It was a true prophecy, and in a sense a confession of Faith.

There ran through his character a vein of something steady and profound, which inspired all who came near him with a sense of quiet persistent strength. This, with an equable, unfailing pressure, restrained or controlled whatever company surrounded him. It was like the regular current of a full but silent tide, or like the consistent power of a good helmsman. It may be called his personal force. To most men and women of our circle, that force was a sustenance and a blessing; to ill-regulated or worldly men with whom he might come in contact, it acted as a salutary irritant, though rarely to so intense a degree as to give rise to scenes. I must unfortunately except the case of the Rural Dean of Bosham, whose notorious excess was the more lamentable from the fact that the Council of the S.P.C.A. is strictly non-sectarian, and whose excuse that the ink-pot was[11] not thrown but brushed aside is, to speak plainly, a tergiversation.

The recent unhappy war in South Africa afforded an excellent opportunity for the exercise of the qualities I mean. He was still active and alert; still guiding men and maidens during its worse days. His tact was admirable. He suffered from the acute divisions of his congregation, but he suffered in powerful silence; and throughout those dark-days his sober necquid nimis[4] was like a keel and ballast for us all.

A young radical of sorts was declaiming at his table one evening against the Concentration Camp. Dr. Caliban listened patiently, and at the end of the harangue said gently, “Shall we join the ladies?” The rebuke was not lost.[5]

On another occasion, when some foreigner was reported in the papers as having doubted Mr. Brodrick’s figures relative to the numbers of the enemy remaining in the field, Dr. Caliban said with quiet dignity, “It is the first time I have heard the word of an English gentleman doubted.”

It must not be imagined from these lines that he defended the gross excesses of the London mob—especially in the matter of strong waters—or that he wholly approved of our policy. “Peace in our time, Oh, Lord!” was his constant cry, and against militarism he thundered fearlessly. I have heard him[12] apply to it a word that never passed his lips in any other connection—the word Damnable.

On the details of the war, the policy of annexation, the advisability of frequent surrenders, the high salaries of irregulars, and the employment of national scouts, he was silent. In fine, one might have applied to him the strong and simple words of Lord Jacobs, in his Guildhall speech.[6] One main fact stood out—he hated warfare. He was a man of peace.

The tall, broad figure, inclining slightly to obesity, the clear blue northern eyes, ever roaming from point to point as though seeking for grace, the familiar soft wideawake, the long full white beard, the veined complexion and dark-gloved hands, are now, alas, removed from the sphere they so long adorned.

Dr. Caliban’s affliction was first noticed by his family at dinner on the first of last September—a date which fell by a strange and unhappy coincidence on a Sunday. For some days past Miss Goucher had remarked his increasing volubility; but on this fatal evening, in spite of all the efforts of his wife and daughters, he continued to speak, without interruption, from half-past seven to a quarter-past nine; and again, after a short interval, till midnight, when he fell into an uneasy sleep, itself full of mutterings. His talk had seemed now a sermon, now the reminiscence of some leading article, now a monologue, but the whole quite incoherent, though delivered with passionate energy; nor was it the least distressing[13] feature of his malady that he would tolerate no reply, nay, even the gentlest assent drove him into paroxysms of fury.

Next day he began again in the manner of a debate at the local Liberal Club, soon lapsing again into a sermon, and anon admitting snatches of strange songs into the flow of his words. Towards eleven he was apparently arguing with imaginary foreigners, and shortly afterwards the terrible scene was ended by the arrival of a medical man of his own persuasion.

It is doubtful whether Dr. Caliban will ever be able to leave Dr. Charlbury’s establishment, but all that can be done for him in his present condition is lovingly and ungrudgingly afforded. There has even been provided for him at considerable expense, and after an exhaustive search, a companion whose persistent hallucination it is that he is acting as private secretary to some leader of the Opposition, and the poor wild soul is at rest.