Part 21 (1/2)
One who knew him intimately in private life has seen him exhorting such backsliders, and denouncing their misconduct and imprudence with the tears streaming down his cheeks. And he would generally conclude by opening his purse, and giving them the help which they needed ”to make a fresh start in the world.”
Mr. Stephenson's life at Tapton during his latter years was occasionally diversified with a visit to London. His engineering business having become limited, he generally went there for the purpose of visiting friends, or ”to see what there was fresh going on.” He found a new race of engineers springing up on all hands-men who knew him not; and his London journeys gradually ceased to yield him pleasure. A friend used to take him to the opera, but by the end of the first act, he was generally in a profound slumber. Yet on one occasion he enjoyed a visit to the Haymarket with a party of friends on his birthday, to see T. P. Cooke, in ”Black-eyed Susan;”-if that can be called enjoyment which kept him in a state of tears during half the performance. At other times he visited Newcastle, which always gave him great pleasure. He would, on such occasions, go out to Killingworth and seek up old friends, and if the people whom he knew were too retiring, and shrunk into their cottages, he went and sought them there. Striking the floor with his stick, and holding his n.o.ble person upright, he would say, in his own kind way, ”Well, and how's all here to-day?” To the last he had always a warm heart for Newcastle and its neighbourhood.
Sir Robert Peel, on more than one occasion, invited George Stephenson to his mansion at Drayton, where he was accustomed to a.s.semble round him men of the highest distinction in art, science, and legislation, during the intervals of his parliamentary life. The first invitation was respectfully declined. Sir Robert invited him a second time, and a second time he declined: ”I have no great ambition,” he said, ”to mix in fine company, and perhaps should feel out of my element amongst such high folks.” But Sir Robert a third time pressed him to come down to Tamworth early in January, 1845, when he would meet Buckland, Follett, and others well known to both. ”Well, Sir Robert,” said he, ”I feel your kindness very much, and can no longer refuse: I will come down and join your party.”
Mr. Stephenson's strong powers of observation, together with his native humour and shrewdness, imparted to his conversation at all times much vigour and originality, and made him, to young and old, a delightful companion. Though mainly an engineer, he was also a profound thinker on many scientific questions: and there was scarcely a subject of speculation, or a department of recondite science, on which he had not employed his faculties in such a way as to have formed large and original views. At Drayton, the conversation usually turned upon such topics, and Mr. Stephenson freely joined in it. On one occasion, an animated discussion took place between himself and Dr. Buckland on one of his favourite theories as to the formation of coal. But the result was, that Dr. Buckland, a much greater master of tongue-fence than Mr. Stephenson, completely silenced him. Next morning, before breakfast, when he was walking in the grounds, deeply pondering, Sir William Follett came up and asked what he was thinking about? ”Why, Sir William, I am thinking over that argument I had with Buckland last night; I know I am right, and that if I had only the command of words which he has, I'd have beaten him.”
”Let me know all about it,” said Sir William, ”and I'll see what I can do for you.” The two sat down in an arbour, and the astute lawyer made himself thoroughly acquainted with the points of the case; entering into it with all the zeal of an advocate about to plead the dearest interests of his client. After he had mastered the subject, Sir William rose up, rubbing his hands with glee, and said, ”Now I am ready for him.” Sir Robert Peel was made acquainted with the plot, and adroitly introduced the subject of the controversy after dinner. The result was, that in the argument which followed, the man of science was overcome by the man of law; and Sir William Follett had at all points the mastery over Dr.
Buckland. ”What do _you_ say, Mr. Stephenson?” asked Sir Robert, laughing. ”Why,” said he, ”I will only say this, that of all the powers above and under the earth, there seems to me to be no power so great as the gift of the gab.” {350}
One Sunday, when the party had just returned from church, they were standing together on the terrace near the Hall, and observed in the distance a railway-train flas.h.i.+ng along, tossing behind its long white plume of steam. ”Now, Buckland,” said Stephenson, ”I have a poser for you. Can you tell me what is the power that is driving that train?”
”Well,” said the other, ”I suppose it is one of your big engines.” ”But what drives the engine?” ”Oh, very likely a canny Newcastle driver.”
”What do you say to the light of the sun?” ”How can that be?” asked the doctor. ”It is nothing else,” said the engineer, ”it is light bottled up in the earth for tens of thousands of years,-light, absorbed by plants and vegetables, being necessary for the condensation of carbon during the process of their growth, if it be not carbon in another form,-and now, after being buried in the earth for long ages in fields of coal, that latent light is again brought forth and liberated, made to work as in that locomotive, for great human purposes.”
During the same visit, Mr. Stephenson, one evening repeated his experiment with blood drawn from the finger, submitting it to the microscope in order to show the curious circulation of the globules. He set the example by p.r.i.c.king his own thumb; and the other guests, by turns, in like manner, gave up a small portion of their blood for the purpose of ascertaining the comparative livelinesss of their circulation.
When Sir Robert Peel's turn came, Mr. Stephenson said he was curious to know ”how the blood globules of a great politician would conduct themselves.” Sir Robert held forth his finger for the purpose of being p.r.i.c.ked; but once, and again, he sensitively shrunk back, and at length the experiment, so far as he was concerned, was abandoned. Sir Robert Peel's sensitiveness to pain was extreme, and yet he was destined, a few years after, to die a death of the most distressing agony.
In 1847, the year before his death, Mr. Stephenson was again invited to join a distinguished party at Drayton Manor, and to a.s.sist in the ceremony of formally opening the Trent Valley Railway, which had been originally designed and laid out by himself many years before. The first sod of the railway had been cut by the Prime Minister, in November, 1845, during the time when Mr. Stephenson was abroad on the business of the Spanish railway. The formal opening took place on the 26th June, 1847, the line having thus been constructed in less than two years.
What a change had come over the spirit of the landed gentry since the time when George Stephenson had first projected a railway through that district! Then they were up in arms against him, characterising him as the devastator and spoiler of their estates; now he was hailed as one of the greatest benefactors of the age. Sir Robert Peel, the chief political personage in England, welcomed him as a guest and friend, and spoke of him as the chief among practical philosophers. A dozen members of Parliament, seven baronets, with all the landed magnates of the district, a.s.sembled to celebrate the opening of the railway. The clergy were there to bless the enterprise, and to bid all hail to railway progress, as ”enabling them to carry on with greater facility those operations in connexion with religion which were calculated to be so beneficial to the country.” The army, speaking through the mouth of General A'Court, acknowledged the vast importance of railways, as tending to improve the military defences of the country. And representatives from eight corporations were there to acknowledge the great benefits which railways had conferred upon the merchants, tradesmen, and working cla.s.ses of their respective towns and cities.
In the spring of 1848 Mr. Stephenson was invited to Whittington House, near Chesterfield, the residence of his friend and former pupil, Mr.
Swanwick, to meet the distinguished American, Emerson. Upon being introduced, they did not immediately engage in conversation; but presently Stephenson jumped up, took Emerson by the collar, and giving him one of his friendly shakes, asked how it was that in England we could always tell an American? This led to an interesting conversation, in the course of which Emerson said how much he had been everywhere struck by the haleness and comeliness of the English men and women; and then they diverged into a further discussion of the influences which air, climate, moisture, soil, and other conditions exercised upon the physical and moral development of a people. The conversation was next directed to the subject of electricity, upon which Stephenson launched out enthusiastically, explaining his views by several simple and striking ill.u.s.trations. From thence it gradually turned to the events of his own life, which he related in so graphic a manner as completely to rivet the attention of the American. Afterwards Emerson said, ”that it was worth crossing the Atlantic to have seen Stephenson alone; he had such native force of character and vigour of intellect.”
The rest of Mr. Stephenson's days were spent quietly at Tapton, amongst his dogs, his rabbits, and his birds. When not engaged about the works connected with his collieries, he was occupied in horticulture and farming. He continued proud of his flowers, his fruits, and his crops; and the old spirit of compet.i.tion was still strong within him. Although he had for some time been in delicate health, and his hand shook from nervous affection, he appeared to possess a sound const.i.tution. Emerson had observed of him that he had the lives of many men in him. But perhaps the American spoke figuratively, in reference to his vast stores of experience. It appeared that he had never completely recovered from the attack of pleurisy which seized him during his return from Spain. As late, however, as the 26th July, 1848, he felt himself sufficiently well to be able to attend a meeting of the Inst.i.tute of Mechanical Engineers at Birmingham, and to read to the members his paper ”On the Fallacies of the Rotatory Engine.” It was his last appearance before them. Shortly after his return to Tapton, he had an attack of intermittent fever, from which he seemed to be recovering, when a sudden effusion of blood from the lungs carried him off, on the 12th August, 1848, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. When all was over, Robert wrote to Edward Pease, ”With deep pain I inform you, as one of his oldest friends, of the death of my dear father this morning at 12 o'clock, after about ten days' illness from severe fever.” Mr. Starbuck, who was also present, wrote, ”The favourable symptoms of yesterday morning were towards evening followed by a serious change for the worse. This continued during the night, and early this morning it became evident that he was sinking. At a few minutes before 12 to-day he breathed his last. All that the most devoted and unremitting care of Mrs. Stephenson {354} and the skill of medicine could accomplish, has been done, but in vain.”
George Stephenson's remains were followed to the grave by a large body of his workpeople, by whom he was greatly admired and beloved. They remembered him as a kind master, who was ever ready actively to promote all measures for their moral, physical, and mental improvement. The inhabitants of Chesterfield evinced their respect for the deceased by suspending business, closing their shops, and joining in the funeral procession, which was headed by the corporation of the town. Many of the surrounding gentry also attended. The body was interred in Trinity Church, Chesterfield, where a simple tablet marks the great engineer's last resting-place.
The statue of George Stephenson, which the Liverpool and Manchester and Grand Junction Companies had commissioned, was on its way to England when his death occurred; and it served for a monument, though his best monument will always be his works. The statue referred to was placed in St. George's Hall, Liverpool. A full-length statue of him, by Bailey, was also erected a few years later, in the n.o.ble vestibule of the London and North-Western Station, in Euston Square. A subscription for the purpose was set on foot by the Society of Mechanical Engineers, of which he had been the founder and president. A few advertis.e.m.e.nts were inserted in the newspapers, inviting subscriptions; and it is a notable fact that the voluntary offerings included an average of two s.h.i.+llings each from 3150 working men, who embraced this opportunity of doing honour to their distinguished fellow workman.
[Picture: Trinity Church, Chesterfield]
But unquestionably the finest and most appropriate statue to the memory of George Stephenson is that erected in 1862, after the design of John Lough, at Newcastle-upon Tyne. It is in the immediate neighbourhood of the Literary and Philosophical Inst.i.tute, to which both George and his son Robert were so much indebted in their early years; close to the great Stephenson locomotive foundry established by the shrewdness of the father; and in the vicinity of the High Level Bridge, one of the grandest products of the genius of the son. The head of Stephenson, as expressed in this n.o.ble work, is ma.s.sive, characteristic, and faithful; and the att.i.tude of the figure is simple yet manly and energetic. It stands on a pedestal, at the respective corners of which are sculptured the rec.u.mbent figures of a pitman, a mechanic, an engine-driver, and a plate-layer.
The statue appropriately stands in a very thoroughfare of working-men, thousands of whom see it daily as they pa.s.s to and from their work; and we can imagine them, as they look up to Stephenson's manly figure, applying to it the words addressed by Robert Nicoll to Robert Burns, with perhaps still greater appropriateness:-
”Before the proudest of the earth We stand, with an uplifted brow; Like us, thou wast a toiling man,- And we are n.o.ble, now!”
The portrait prefixed to this volume gives a good indication of George Stephenson's shrewd, kind, honest, manly face. His fair, clear countenance was ruddy, and seemingly glowed with health. The forehead was large and high, projecting over the eyes, and there was that ma.s.sive breadth across the lower part which is usually observed in men of eminent constructive skill. The mouth was firmly marked, and shrewdness and humour lurked there as well as in the keen grey eye. His frame was compact, well-knit, and rather spare. His hair became grey at an early age, and towards the close of his life it was of a pure silky whiteness.
He dressed neatly in black, wearing a white neckcloth; and his face, his person, and his deportment at once arrested attention, and marked the Gentleman.
[Picture: Tablet in Trinity Church, Chesterfield]
[Picture: Victoria Bridge, Montreal]
CHAPTER XIX.
ROBERT STEPHENSON'S VICTORIA BRIDGE, LOWER CANADA-ILLNESS AND DEATH-STEPHENSON CHARACTERISTICS.
George Stephenson bequeathed to his son his valuable collieries, his share in the engine manufactory at Newcastle, and his large acc.u.mulation of savings, which, together with the fortune he had himself ama.s.sed by railway work, gave Robert the position of an engineer millionaire-the first of his order. He continued, however, to live in a quiet style; and although he bought occasional pictures and statues, and indulged in the luxury of a yacht, he did not live up to his income, which went on rapidly acc.u.mulating until his death.
There was no longer the necessity for applying himself to the laborious business of a parliamentary engineer, in which he had now been occupied for some fifteen years. Shortly after his father's death, Edward Pease strongly recommended him to give up the more hara.s.sing work of his profession; and his reply (15th June, 1850) was as follows:-”The suggestion which your kind note contains is quite in accordance with my own feelings and intentions respecting retirement; but I find it a very difficult matter to bring to a close so complicated a connexion in business as that which has been established by twenty-five years of active and arduous professional duty. Comparative retirement is, however, my intention; and I trust that your prayer for the Divine blessing to grant me happiness and quiet comfort will be fulfilled. I cannot but feel deeply grateful to the Great Disposer of events for the success which has. .h.i.therto attended my exertions in life; and I trust that the future will also be marked by a continuance of His mercies.”