Part 30 (2/2)
Mrs. Norton had marvellously beautiful and expressive eyes, such as one seldom meets thrice in a life. As a harp well played inspires tears or the impulse to dance, so her glances conveyed, almost in the same instant, deep emotion and exquisite merriment. I remember that she was much amused with some of my American jests and reminiscences, and was always prompt to respond, _eodem genere_. So nightingale the wodewale answereth.
During this season in London I met Thomas Carlyle. Our mutual friend, Moncure Conway, had arranged that I should call on the great writer at the house of the latter in Chelsea. I went there at about eleven in the morning, and when Mr. Carlyle entered the room I was amazed--I may say almost awed--by something which was altogether unexpected, and this was his _extraordinary_ likeness to my late father. A slight resemblance to Carlyle may be seen in my own profile, but had he been with my father, the pair might have pa.s.sed for twins; and in iron-grey grimness and the never-to-be-convinced expression of the eyes they were ident.i.ty itself.
I can only remember that for the first twenty or thirty minutes Mr.
Carlyle talked such a lot of skimble-skamble stuff and rubbish, which sounded like the very _debris_ and lees of his ”Latter-Day Pamphlets,”
that I began to suspect that he was quizzing me, or that this was the manner in which he ladled out Carlyleism to visitors who came to be Carlyled and acted unto. It struck me as if Mr. Tennyson, bored with lion-hunting guests, had begun to repeat his poetry to them out of sheer sarcasm, or as if he felt, ”Well, you've come to _see_ and _hear_ me--a poet--so take your poetry, and be d---d to you!” However, it may be I felt a coming wrath, and the Socratic demon or gypsy _dook_, which often rises in me on such occasions, and never deceives me, gave me a strong premonition that there was to be, if not an exemplary row, at least a lively incident which was to put a snapped end to this humbugging.
It came thus. All at once Mr. Carlyle abruptly asked me, in a manner or with an intonation which sounded to me almost semi-contemptuous, ”And what kind of an American may you be?” (I _think_ he said ”will you be?”) ”German, or Irish, or what?”
To which I replied, not over amiably:--
”Since it interests you, Mr. Carlyle, to know the origin of my family, I may say that I am descended from Henry Leland, whom the tradition declares to have been a noted Puritan, and active in the politics of his time,' and who went to America in 1636.”
To this Mr. Carlyle replied:--
”I doubt whether any of your family have since been equal to your old Puritan great-grandfather” (or ”done anything to equal your old Puritan grandfather”). With this something to the effect that we had done nothing in America since Cromwell's Revolution, equal to it in importance or of any importance.
Then a great rage came over me, and I remember _very_ distinctly that there flashed through my mind in a second the reflection, ”Now, if I have to call you a d---d old fool for saying that, I _will_; but I'll be even with you.” When as quickly the following inspiration came, which I uttered, and I suspect somewhat energetically:--
”Mr. Carlyle, I think that my brother, Henry Leland, who got the wound from which he died standing by my side in the war of the rebellion, fighting against slavery, was worth ten of my old Puritan ancestors; at least, he died in a ten times better cause. And” (here my old ”Indian”
was up and I let it out) ”allow me to say, Mr. Carlyle, that I think that in all matters of historical criticism you are princ.i.p.ally influenced by the merely melodramatic and theatrical.”
Here Mr. Carlyle, looking utterly amazed and startled, though not at all angry, said, for the first time, in broad Scotch--
”Whot's _thot_ ye say?”
”I say, Mr. Carlyle,” I exclaimed with rising wrath, ”that I consider that in all historical judgments you are influenced only by the melodramatic and theatrical.”
A grim smile as of admiration came over the stern old face. Whether he really felt the justice of the hit I know not, but he was evidently pleased at the manner in which it was delivered, and it was with a deeply reflective and not displeased air that he replied, still in Scotch--
”Na, na, I'm nae _thot_.”
It was the terrier who had ferociously attacked the lion, and the lion was charmed. From that instant he was courteous, companionable, and affable, and talked as if we had been long acquainted, and as if he liked me. It occurred to me that the resemblance of Carlyle to my father during the row was appalling, the difference being that my father _never_ gave in. It would have been an awful sight to see and a sound to hear if the two could have ”discussed” some subject on which they were equally informed--say the American tariff or slavery.
After a while Mr. Froude the historian came in, and we all went out together for a walk in the Park. Pausing on the bridge, Mr. Carlyle called my attention to the very rural English character of a part of the scenery in the distance, where a church-spire rises over ranges of tree- tops. I observed that the smoke of a gypsy fire and a tent by a hedge was all that was needed. Then we began to talk about gypsies, and I told Mr. Carlyle that I could talk Romany, and ran on with some reminiscences, whereat, as I now recall, though I did not note it then, his amus.e.m.e.nt at or interest in me seemed to be much increased, as if I had unexpectedly turned out to be something a little out of the ordinary line of tourist interviewers; and truly in those days Romany ryes were not so common as they now are. Then Mr. Carlyle himself told a story, how his father--if I remember rightly--had once lent a large sum to or trusted a gypsy in some extraordinary manner. It befell in after days that the lender was himself in sore straits, when the gypsy took him by night to a hut, and digging up or lifting the _hard-stane_ or hearth-stone, took out a bag of guineas, which he transferred to his benefactor.
We parted, and this was the only time I ever conversed with Mr. Carlyle, though I saw him subsequently on more than one occasion. He sent word specially by Mr. Conway to me that he would be pleased to have me call again; but ”once bitten twice shy,” and I had not so much enjoyed my call as to wish to repeat it. But I believe that what Mr. Carlyle absolutely needed above all things on earth was somebody to put on the gloves with him metaphorically about once a day, and give and take a few thumping blows; nor do I believe that he would have shrunk from a tussle _a la Choctaw_, with biting, gouging, tomahawk and scalper, for he had an uncommonly _dour_ look about the eyes, and must have been a magnificent fighter when once roused. But though I had not his vast genius nor wit, I had the great advantage of having often had very severe differences with my father, who was, I believe, as much Carlyled by Nature as Carlyle himself, if not more so, whereas it is morally impossible that the Sage of Chelsea could ever have found any one like himself to train under. But to Carlyle people in conversation requires constant practice with a master--_consuetudine quotidiana c.u.m aliquo congredi_--and he had for so long a time knocked everybody down without meeting the least resistance, that victory had palled upon him, and he had, so to speak, ”vinegared” on himself. With somebody to ”sa.s.s him back,” Carlyle would have been cured of the dyspepsia, and have lived twenty years longer.
Carlyle's was and ever will be one of the greatest names in English literature, and it is very amusing to observe how the gossip-makers, who judge of genius by t.i.ttle-tattle and petty personal defects, have condemned him _in toto_ because he was not an angel to a dame who was certainly a bit of a _diablesse_. Thus I find in a late very popular collection the remark that--
”It is curious to note in the 'Life and Correspondence of Lord Houghton'
the high estimation in which Carlyle was held by him. His regard and admiration cannot but seem exaggerated, now that we know so much of the Chelsea philosopher's real character.”
This is _quite_ the moral old lady, who used to think that Raphael was a good painter ”till she read all about that nasty Fornarina.”
There was another hard old character with whom I became acquainted in those days, and one who, though not a Carlyle, still, like him, exercised in a peculiar way a great influence on English literature. This was George Borrow. I was in the habit of reading a great deal in the British Museum, where he also came, and there I was introduced to him.
He was busy with a venerable-looking volume in old Irish and made the remark to me that he did not believe there was a man living who could read old Irish with ease (which I now observe to myself was ”fished” out of Sir W. Betham). We discussed several gypsy words and phrases. I met him in the same place several times. He was a tall, large, fine-looking man, who must have been handsome in his youth. I knew at the time in London a Mr. Kerrison, who had been as a very young man, probably in the Twenties, very intimate with Borrow. He told me that one night Borrow acted very wildly, whooping and vociferating so as to cause the police to follow him, and after a long run led them to the edge of the Thames, ”and there they thought they had him.” But he plunged boldly into the water and swam in his clothes to the opposite sh.o.r.e, and so escaped.
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