Annie
Besant
An Autobiography
Illustrated
LONDON
SECOND EDITION
From a photograph by H.S. Mendelssohn, 27,
Cathcart Road, South Kensington, London
ANNIE BESANT
1885
PREFACE
It is a difficult thing to tell the story
of a life, and yet more difficult when that life is one's own. At the best, the
telling has a savour of vanity, and the only excuse for the proceeding is that
the life, being an average one, reflects many others, and in troublous times
like ours may give the experience of many rather than of one. And so the
autobiographer does his work because he thinks that, at the cost of some
unpleasantness to himself, he may throw light on some of the typical problems
that are vexing the souls of his contemporaries, and perchance may stretch out a
helping hand to some brother who is struggling in the darkness, and so bring him
cheer when despair has him in its grip. Since all of us, men and women of this
restless and eager generation—surrounded by forces we dimly see but cannot as
yet understand, discontented with old ideas and half afraid of new, greedy for
the material results of the knowledge brought us by Science but looking askance
at her agnosticism as regards the soul, fearful of superstition but still more
fearful of atheism, turning from the husks of outgrown creeds but filled with
desperate hunger for spiritual ideals--since all of us have the same anxieties,
the same griefs, the same yearning hopes, the same passionate desire for
knowledge, it may well be that the story of one may help all, and that the tale
of one should that went out alone into the darkness and on the other side found
light, that struggled through the Storm and on the other side found Peace, may
bring some ray of light and of peace into the darkness and the storm of other
lives.
ANNIE BESANT.
The Theosophical Society,
17 & 19, Avenue Road, Regent's Park,
London.
August, 1893.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I.
"OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE INTO THE HERE"
II.
EARLY CHILDHOOD
III.
GIRLHOOD
IV.
MARRIAGE
V.
THE STORM OF DOUBT
VI.
CHARLES BRADLAUGH
VII.
ATHEISM AS I KNEW AND TAUGHT IT
VIII.
AT WORK
IX.
THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET
X.
AT WAR ALL ROUND
XI.
MR. BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE
XII.
STILL FIGHTING
XIII.
SOCIALISM
XIV.
THROUGH STORM TO PEACE
LIST OF BOOKS QUOTED
INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ANNIE BESANT, 1885
Frontispiece
HOROSCOPE OF ANNIE BESANT
Page 12
ANNIE BESANT, 1869
Facing page 86
THOMAS SCOTT
Facing page 112
CHARLES BRADLAUGH, M.P.
Facing page 212
CHARLES BRADLAUGH AND HENRY
LABOUCHERE
Facing page 254
NORWICH BRANCH OF THE
SOCIALIST LEAGUE
Facing page 314
STRIKE COMMITTEE OF THE
MATCHMAKERS' UNION
Facing page 336
MEMBERS OF THE MATCHMAKERS'
UNION
Facing page 338
CHAPTER I.
"OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE
INTO THE HERE."
1.
On October 1,
1847, I am credibly informed, my baby eyes opened to the
light(?) of a London
afternoon at 5.39.
2.
A friendly
astrologer has drawn for me the following chart, showing the position of the
planets at this, to me fateful, moment; but I know nothing of astrology, so feel
no wiser as I gaze upon my horoscope.
3.
4.
Horoscope of
Annie Besant.
5.
Keeping in
view the way in which sun, moon, and planets influence the physical condition of
the earth, there is nothing incongruous with the orderly course of nature in the
view that they also influence the physical bodies of men, these being part of
the physical earth, and largely moulded by its conditions. Any one who knows the
characteristics ascribed to those who are born under the several signs of the
Zodiac, may very easily pick out the different types among his own
acquaintances, and he may then get them to go to some astrologer and find out
under what signs they were severally born. He will very quickly discover that
two men of completely opposed types are not born under the same sign, and the
invariability of the concurrence will convince him that law, and not chance, is
at work. We are born into earthly life under certain conditions, just as we were
physically affected by them pre-natally, and these will have their bearing on
our subsequent physical evolution. At the most, astrology, as it is now
practised, can only calculate the interaction between these physical conditions
at any given moment, and the conditions brought to them by a given person whose
general constitution and natal condition are known. It cannot say what the
person will do, nor what will happen to him, but only what will be the physical
district, so to speak, in which he will find himself, and the impulses that will
play upon him from external nature and from his own body. Even on those matters
modern astrology is not quite reliable—judging from the many blunders made—or
else its professors are very badly instructed; but that there is a real science
of astrology I have no doubt, and there are some men who are past masters in it.
6.
It has always
been somewhat of a grievance to me that I was born in London, "within the sound
of Bow Bells," when three-quarters of my blood and all my heart are Irish. My
dear mother was of purest Irish descent, and my father was Irish on his mother's
side, though belonging to the Devonshire Woods on his father's. The Woods were
yeomen of the sturdy English type, farming their own land in honest, independent
fashion. Of late years they seem to have developed more in the direction of
brains, from the time, in fact, that Matthew Wood became Mayor of London town,
fought Queen Caroline's battles against her most religious and gracious royal
husband, aided the Duke of Kent with no niggard hand, and received a baronetcy
for his services from the Duke of Kent's royal daughter. Since then they have
given England
a Lord Chancellor in the person of the gentle-hearted and pure-living Lord
Hatherley, while others have distinguished themselves in various ways in the
service of their country. But I feel playfully inclined to grudge the English
blood they put into my father's veins, with his Irish mother, his Galway birth,
and his Trinity College,
Dublin,
education. For the Irish tongue is musical in my ear, and the Irish nature dear
to my heart. Only in Ireland
is it that if you stop to ask a worn-out ragged woman the way to some old
monument, she will say: "Sure, then, my darlin', it's just up the hill and round
the corner, and then any one will tell you the way. And it's there you'll see
the place where the blessed Saint Patrick set his foot, and his blessing be on
yer." Old women as poor as she in other nations would never be as bright and as
friendly and as garrulous. And where, out of Ireland, will you see a whole town
crowd into a station to say good-bye to half a dozen emigrants, till the
platform is a heaving mass of men and women, struggling, climbing over each
other for a last kiss, crying, keening, laughing, all in a breath, till all the
air is throbbing and there's a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes as the
train steams out? Where, out of Ireland, will
you be bumping along the streets on an outside car, beside a taciturn Jarvey,
who, on suddenly discovering that you are shadowed by "Castle" spies, becomes
loquaciously friendly, and points out everything that he thinks will interest
you? Blessings on the quick tongues and warm hearts, on the people so easy to
lead, so hard to drive. And blessings on the ancient land once inhabited by
mighty men of wisdom, that in later times became the Island of Saints,
and shall once again be the Island
of Sages, when the Wheel
turns round.
7.
My maternal
grandfather was a typical Irishman, much admired by me and somewhat feared also,
in the childish days. He belonged to a decayed Irish family, the Maurices, and
in a gay youth, with a beautiful wife as light-hearted as himself, he had
merrily run through what remained to him in the way of fortune. In his old age,
with abundant snow-white hair, he still showed the hot Irish blood on the
lightest provocation, stormily angry for a moment and easily appeased. My mother
was the second daughter in a large family, in a family that grew more numerous
as pounds grew fewer, and she was adopted by a maiden aunt, a quaint memory of
whom came through my mother's childhood into mine, and had its moulding effect
on both our characters. This maiden aunt was, as are most Irish folk of decayed
families, very proud of her family tree with its roots in the inevitable
"kings." Her particular kings were the "seven kings of
France"—the "Milesian kings"—and the tree grew
up a parchment, in all its impressive majesty, over the mantelpiece of their
descendant's modest drawing-room. This heraldic monster was regarded with deep
respect by child Emily, a respect in no wise deserved, I venture to suppose, by
the disreputable royalties of whom she was a fortunately distant twig. Chased
out of France, doubtless for cause shown, they had come over the sea to Ireland,
and there continued their reckless plundering lives. But so strangely turns the
wheel of time that these ill-doing and barbarous scamps became a kind of moral
thermometer in the home of the gentle Irish lady in the early half of the
present century. For my mother has told me that when she had committed some act
of childish naughtiness, her aunt would say, looking gravely over her spectacles
at the small culprit, "Emily, your conduct is unworthy of the descendant of the
seven kings of France." And Emily, with her sweet grey Irish eyes and her
curling masses of raven black hair, would cry in penitent shame over her
unworthiness, with some vague idea that those royal, and to her very real,
ancestors would despise her small, sweet, rosebud self, so wholly unworthy of
their disreputable majesties.
8.
Thus those
shadowy forms influenced her in childhood, and exercised over her a power that
made her shrink from aught that was unworthy, petty or mean. To her the lightest
breath of dishonour was to be avoided at any cost of pain, and she wrought into
me, her only daughter, that same proud and passionate horror at any taint of
shame or merited disgrace. To the world always a brave front was to be kept, and
a stainless reputation, for suffering might be borne but dishonour never. A
gentlewoman might starve, but she must not run in debt; she might break her
heart, but it must be with a smile on her face. I have often thought that the
training in this reticence and pride of honour was a strange preparation for my
stormy, public, much attacked and slandered life; and certain it is that this
inwrought shrinking from all criticism that touched personal purity and personal
honour added a keenness of suffering to the fronting of public odium that none
can appreciate who has not been trained in some similar school of dignified
self-respect. And yet perhaps there was another result from it that in value
outweighed the added pain: it was the stubbornly resistant feeling that rose and
inwardly asserted its own purity in face of foulest lie, and turning scornful
face against the foe, too proud either to justify itself or to defend, said to
itself in its own heart, when condemnation was loudest: "I am not what you think
me, and your verdict does not change my own self. You cannot make me vile
whatever you think of me, and I will never, in my own eyes, be that which you
deem me to be now." And the very pride became a shield against degradation, for,
however lost my public reputation, I could never bear to become sullied in my
own sight—and that is a thing not without its use to a woman cut off, as I was
at one time, from home, and friends, and Society. So peace to the maiden aunt's
ashes, and to those of her absurd kings, for I owe them something after all. And
I keep grateful memory of that unknown grand-aunt, for what she did in training
my dear mother, the tenderest, sweetest, proudest, purest of women. It is well
to be able to look back to a mother who served as ideal of all that was noblest
and dearest during childhood and girlhood, whose face made the beauty of home,
and whose love was both sun and shield. No other experience in life could quite
make up for missing the perfect tie between mother and child—a tie that in our
case never relaxed and never weakened. Though her grief at my change of faith
and consequent social ostracism did much to hasten her death-hour, it never
brought a cloud between our hearts; though her pleading was the hardest of all
to face in later days, and brought the bitterest agony, it made no gulf between
us, it cast no chill upon our mutual love. And I look back at her to-day with
the same loving gratitude as ever encircled her to me in her earthly life. I
have never met a woman more selflessly devoted to those she loved, more
passionately contemptuous of all that was mean or base, more keenly sensitive on
every question of honour, more iron in will, more sweet in tenderness, than the
mother who made my girlhood sunny as dreamland, who guarded me, until my
marriage, from every touch of pain that she could ward off or bear for me, who
suffered more in every trouble that touched me in later life than I did myself,
and who died in the little house I had taken for our new home in Norwood, worn
out, ere old age touched her, by sorrow, poverty, and pain, in May, 1874.
9.
My earliest
personal recollections are of a house and garden that we lived in when I was
three and four years of age, situated in Grove Road, St. John's Wood. I can
remember my mother hovering round the dinner-table to see that all was bright
for the home-coming husband; my brother—two years older than myself—and I
watching "for papa"; the loving welcome, the game of romps that always preceded
the dinner of the elder folks. I can remember on the 1st of October, 1851,
jumping up in my little cot, and shouting out triumphantly: "Papa! mamma! I am
four years old!" and the grave demand of my brother, conscious of superior age,
at dinner-time: "May not Annie have a knife to-day, as she is four years old?"
10.
It was a sore
grievance during that same year, 1851, that I was not judged old enough to go to
the Great Exhibition, and I have a faint memory of my brother consolingly
bringing me home one of those folding pictured strips that are sold in the
streets, on which were imaged glories that I longed only the more to see.
Far-away, dusky, trivial memories, these. What a pity it is that a baby cannot
notice, cannot observe, cannot remember, and so throw light on the fashion of
the dawning of the external world on the human consciousness. If only we could
remember how things looked when they were first imaged on the retinae; what we
felt when first we became conscious of the outer world; what the feeling was as
faces of father and mother grew out of the surrounding chaos and became familiar
things, greeted with a smile, lost with a cry; if only memory would not become a
mist when in later years we strive to throw our glances backward into the
darkness of our infancy, what lessons we might learn to help our stumbling
psychology, how many questions might be solved whose answers we are groping for
in the West in vain.
11.
The next
scene that stands out clearly against the background of the past is that of my
father's death-bed. The events which led to his death I know from my dear
mother. He had never lost his fondness for the profession for which he had been
trained, and having many medical friends, he would now and then accompany them
on their hospital rounds, or share with them the labours of the dissecting-room.
It chanced that during the dissection of the body of a person who had died of
rapid consumption, my father cut his finger against the edge of the breast-bone.
The cut did not heal easily, and the finger became swollen and inflamed. "I
would have that finger off, Wood, if I were you," said one of the surgeons, a
day or two afterwards, on seeing the state of the wound. But the others laughed
at the suggestion, and my father, at first inclined to submit to the amputation,
was persuaded to "leave Nature alone."
12.
About the
middle of August, 1852, he got wet through, riding on the top of an omnibus, and
the wetting resulted in a severe cold, which "settled on his chest." One of the
most eminent doctors of the day, as able as he was rough in manner, was called
to see him. He examined him carefully, sounded his lungs, and left the room
followed by my mother. "Well?" she asked, scarcely anxious as to the answer,
save as it might worry her husband to be kept idly at home. "You must keep up
his spirits," was the thoughtless answer. "He is in a galloping consumption; you
will not have him with you six weeks longer." The wife staggered back, and fell
like a stone on the floor. But love triumphed over agony, and half an hour later
she was again at her husband's side, never to leave it again for ten minutes at
a time, night or day, till he was lying with closed eyes asleep in death.
13.
I was lifted
on to the bed to "say good-bye to dear papa" on the day before his death, and I
remember being frightened at his eyes which looked so large, and his voice which
sounded so strange, as he made me promise always to be "a very good girl to
darling mamma, as papa was going right away." I remember insisting that "papa
should kiss Cherry," a doll given me on my birthday, three days before, by his
direction, and being removed, crying and struggling, from the room. He died on
the following day, October 5th, and I do not think that my elder brother and
I—who were staying at our maternal grandfather's—went to the house again until
the day of the funeral. With the death, my mother broke down, and when all was
over they carried her senseless from the room. I remember hearing afterwards
how, when she recovered her senses, she passionately insisted on being left
alone, and locked herself into her room for the night; and how on the following
morning her mother, at last persuading her to open the door, started back at the
face she saw with the cry: "Good God, Emily! your hair is white!" It was even
so; her hair, black, glossy and abundant, which, contrasting with her large grey
eyes, had made her face so strangely attractive, had turned grey in that night
of agony, and to me my mother's face is ever framed in exquisite silver bands of
hair as white as the driven unsullied snow.
14.
I have heard
that the love between my father and mother was a very beautiful thing, and it
most certainly stamped her character for life. He was keenly intellectual and
splendidly educated; a mathematician and a good classical scholar, thoroughly
master of French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, with a smattering of
Hebrew and Gaelic, the treasures of ancient and of modern literature were his
daily household delight. Nothing pleased him so well as to sit with his wife,
reading aloud to her while she worked; now translating from some foreign poet,
now rolling forth melodiously the exquisite cadences of "Queen Mab." Student of
philosophy as he was, he was deeply and steadily sceptical; and a very religious
relative has told me that he often drove her from the room by his light, playful
mockery of the tenets of the Christian faith. His mother and sister were strict
Roman Catholics, and near the end forced a priest into his room, but the priest
was promptly ejected by the wrath of the dying man, and by the almost fierce
resolve of the wife that no messenger of the creed he detested should trouble
her darling at the last.
15.
Deeply read
in philosophy, he had outgrown the orthodox beliefs of his day, and his wife,
who loved him too much to criticise, was wont to reconcile her own piety and his
scepticism by holding that "women ought to be religious," while men had a right
to read everything and think as they would, provided that they were upright and
honourable in their lives. But the result of his liberal and unorthodox thought
was to insensibly modify and partially rationalise her own beliefs, and she put
on one side as errors the doctrines of eternal punishment, the vicarious
atonement, the infallibility of the Bible, the equality of the Son with the
Father in the Trinity, and other orthodox beliefs, and rejoiced in her later
years in the writings of such men as Jowett, Colenso, and Stanley. The last
named, indeed, was her ideal Christian gentleman, suave, polished, broad-minded,
devout in a stately way. The baldness of a typical Evangelical service outraged
her taste as much as the crudity of Evangelical dogmas outraged her intellect;
she liked to feel herself a Christian in a dignified and artistic manner, and to
be surrounded by solemn music and splendid architecture when she "attended
Divine service." Familiarity with celestial personages was detestable to her,
and she did her duty of saluting them in a courtly and reverent fashion.
Westminster Abbey was her favourite church, with its dim light and shadowy
distances; there in a carven stall, with choristers chanting in solemn rhythm,
with the many-coloured glories of the painted windows repeating themselves on
upspringing arch and clustering pillars, with the rich harmonies of the pealing
organ throbbing up against screen and monument, with the ashes of the mighty
dead around, and all the stately memories of the past inwrought into the very
masonry, there Religion appeared to her to be intellectually dignified and
emotionally satisfactory.
16.
To me, who
took my religion in strenuous fashion, this dainty and well-bred piety seemed
perilously like Laodicean lukewarmness, while my headlong vigour of conviction
and practice often jarred on her as alien from the delicate balance and absence
of extremes that should characterise the gentlewoman. She was of the old
régime; I of the stuff from which fanatics are made: and I have often
thought, in looking back, that she must have had on her lips many a time
unspoken a phrase that dropped from them when she lay a-dying: "My little one,
you have never made me sad or sorry except for your own sake; you have always
been too religious." And then she murmured to herself: "Yes, it has been darling
Annie's only fault; she has always been too religious." Methinks that, as the
world judges, the dying voice spake truly, and the dying eyes saw with a real
insight. For though I was then kneeling beside her bed, heretic and outcast, the
heart of me was religious in its very fervour of repudiation of a religion, and
in its rebellious uprising against dogmas that crushed the reason and did not
satisfy the soul. I went out into the darkness alone, not because religion was
too good for me, but because it was not good enough; it was too meagre, too
commonplace, too little exacting, too bound up with earthly interests, too
calculating in its accommodations to social conventionalities. The Roman
Catholic Church, had it captured me, as it nearly did, would have sent me on
some mission of danger and sacrifice and utilised me as a martyr; the Church
established by law transformed me into an unbeliever and an antagonist.
17.
For as a
child I was mystical and imaginative religious to the very finger-tips, and with
a certain faculty for seeing visions and dreaming dreams. This faculty is not
uncommon with the Keltic races, and makes them seem "superstitious" to more
solidly-built peoples. Thus, on the day of my father's funeral, my mother sat
with vacant eyes and fixed pallid face—the picture comes back to me yet, it so
impressed my childish imagination—following the funeral service, stage after
stage, and suddenly, with the words, "It is all over!" fell back fainting. She
said afterwards that she had followed the hearse, had attended the service, had
walked behind the coffin to the grave. Certain it is that a few weeks later she
determined to go to the Kensal Green Cemetery, where the body of her husband had
been laid, and went thither with a relative; he failed to find the grave, and
while another of the party went in search of an official to identify the spot,
my mother said, "If you will take me to the chapel where the first part of the
service was read, I will find the grave." The idea seemed to her friend, of
course, to be absurd; but he would not cross the newly-made widow, so took her
to the chapel. She looked round, left the chapel door, and followed the path
along which the corpse had been borne till she reached the grave, where she was
quietly standing when the caretaker arrived to point it out. The grave is at
some distance from the chapel, and is not on one of the main roads; it had
nothing on it to mark it, save the wooden peg with the number, and this would be
no help to identification at a distance since all the graves are thus marked,
and at a little way off these pegs are not visible. How she found the grave
remained a mystery in the family, as no one believed her straightforward story
that she had been present at the funeral. With my present knowledge the matter
is simple enough, for I now know that the consciousness can leave the body, take
part in events going on at a distance, and, returning, impress on the physical
brain what it has experienced. The very fact that she asked to be taken to the
chapel is significant, showing that she was picking up a memory of a previous
going from that spot to the grave; she could only find the grave if she started
from the place from which she had started before. Another proof of this
ultra-physical capacity was given a few months later, when her infant son, who
had been pining himself ill for "papa," was lying one night in her arms. On the
next morning she said to her sister: "Alf is going to die." The child had no
definite disease, but was wasting away, and it was argued to her that the
returning spring would restore the health lost during the winter. "No," was her
answer. "He was lying asleep in my arms last night, and William" (her husband)
"came to me and said that he wanted Alf with him, but that I might keep the
other two." In vain she was assured that she had been dreaming, that it was
quite natural that she should dream about her husband, and that her anxiety for
the child had given the dream its shape. Nothing would persuade her that she had
not seen her husband, or that the information he had given her was not true. So
it was no matter of surprise to her when in the following March her arms were
empty, and a waxen form lay lifeless in the baby's cot.
18.
My brother
and I were allowed to see him just before he was placed in his coffin; I can see
him still, so white and beautiful, with a black spot in the middle of the fair,
waxen forehead, and I remember the deadly cold which startled me when I was told
to kiss my little brother. It was the first time that I had touched Death. That
black spot made a curious impression on me, and long afterwards, asking what had
caused it, I was told that at the moment after his death my mother had
passionately kissed the baby brow. Pathetic thought, that the mother's kiss of
farewell should have been marked by the first sign of corruption on the child's
face!
19.
I do not
mention these stories because they are in any fashion remarkable or out of the
way, but only to show that the sensitiveness to impressions other than physical
ones, that was a marked feature in my own childhood, was present also in the
family to which I belonged. For the physical nature is inherited from parents,
and sensitiveness to psychic impressions is a property of the physical body; in
our family, as in so many Irish ones, belief in "ghosts" of all descriptions was
general, and my mother has told me of the banshee that she had heard wailing
when the death-hour of one of the family was near. To me in my childhood, elves
and fairies of all sorts were very real things, and my dolls were as really
children as I was myself a child. Punch and Judy were living entities, and the
tragedy in which they bore part cost me many an agony of tears; to this day I
can remember running away when I heard the squawk of the coming Punch, and
burying my head in the pillows that I might shut out the sound of the blows and
the cry of the ill-used baby. All the objects about me were to me alive, the
flowers that I kissed as much as the kitten I petted, and I used to have a
splendid time "making believe" and living out all sorts of lovely stories among
my treasured and so-called inanimate playthings. But there was a more serious
side to this dreamful fancy when it joined hands with religion.
(1) CHAPTER II.
20.
EARLY
CHILDHOOD.
21.
And now began
my mother's time of struggle and of anxiety. Hitherto, since her marriage, she
had known no money troubles, for her husband was earning a good income; he was
apparently vigorous and well: no thought of anxiety clouded their future. When
he died, he believed that he left his wife and children safe, at least, from
pecuniary distress. It was not so. I know nothing of the details, but the
outcome of all was that nothing was left for the widow and children, save a
trifle of ready money. The resolve to which my mother came was characteristic.
Two of her husband's relatives, Western and Sir William Wood, offered to educate
her son at a good city school, and to start him in commercial life, using their
great city influence to push him forward. But the young lad's father and mother
had talked of a different future for their eldest boy; he was to go to a public
school, and then to the University, and was to enter one of the "learned
professions"—to take orders, the mother wished; to go to the Bar, the father
hoped. On his death-bed there was nothing more earnestly urged by my father than
that Harry should receive the best possible education, and the widow was
resolute to fulfil that last wish. In her eyes, a city school was not "the best
possible education," and the Irish pride rebelled against the idea of her son
not being "a University man." Many were the lectures poured out on the young
widow's head about her "foolish pride," especially by the female members of the
Wood family; and her persistence in her own way caused a considerable alienation
between herself and them. But Western and William, though half-disapproving,
remained her friends, and lent many a helping hand to her in her first difficult
struggles. After much cogitation, she resolved that the boy should be educated
at Harrow, where the fees are comparatively low to lads living in the town, and
that he should go thence to Cambridge or to Oxford, as his tastes should direct.
A bold scheme for a penniless widow, but carried out to the letter; for never
dwelt in a delicate body a more resolute mind and will than that of my dear
mother.
22.
In a few
months' time—during which we lived, poorly enough, in Richmond Terrace, Clapham,
close to her father and mother—to Harrow, then, she betook herself, into
lodgings over a grocer's shop, and set herself to look for a house. This grocer
was a very pompous man, fond of long words, and patronised the young widow
exceedingly, and one day my mother related with much amusement how he had told
her that she was sure to get on if she worked hard. "Look at me!" he said,
swelling visibly with importance; "I was once a poor boy, without a penny of my
own, and now I am a comfortable man, and have my submarine villa to go to every
evening." That "submarine villa" was an object of amusement when we passed it in
our walks for many a long day.
23.
"There is Mr.
—'s submarine villa," some one would say, laughing: and I, too, used to laugh
merrily, because my elders did, though my understanding of the difference
between suburban and submarine was on a par with that of the honest grocer.
24.
My mother had
fortunately found a boy, whose parents were glad to place him in her charge, of
about the age of her own son, to educate with him; and by this means she was
able to pay for a tutor, to prepare the two boys for school. The tutor had a
cork leg, which was a source of serious trouble to me, for it stuck out straight
behind when we knelt down to family prayers—conduct which struck me as
irreverent and unbecoming, but which I always felt a desire to imitate. After
about a year my mother found a house which she thought would suit her scheme,
namely, to obtain permission from Dr. Vaughan, the then head-master of Harrow,
to take some boys into her house, and so gain means of education for her own
son. Dr. Vaughan, who must have been won by the gentle, strong, little woman,
from that time forth became her earnest friend and helper; and to the counsel
and active assistance both of himself and of his wife, was due much of the
success that crowned her toil. He made only one condition in granting the
permission she asked, and that was, that she should also have in her house one
of the masters of the school, so that the boys should not suffer from the want
of a house-tutor. This condition, of course, she readily accepted, and the
arrangement lasted for ten years, until after her son had left school for
Cambridge.
25.
The house she
took is now, I am sorry to say, pulled down, and replaced by a hideous red-brick
structure. It was very old and rambling, rose-covered in front, ivy-covered
behind; it stood on the top of Harrow Hill, between the church and the school,
and had once been the vicarage of the parish, but the vicar had left it because
it was so far removed from the part of the village where all his work lay. The
drawing-room opened by an old-fashioned half-window, half-door—which proved a
constant source of grief to me, for whenever I had on a new frock I always tore
it on the bolt as I flew through—into a large garden which sloped down one side
of the hill, and was filled with the most delightful old trees, fir and laurel,
may, mulberry, hazel, apple, pear, and damson, not to mention currant and
gooseberry bushes innumerable, and large strawberry beds spreading down the
sunny slopes. There was not a tree there that I did not climb, and one, a
widespreading Portugal laurel, was my private country house. I had there my
bedroom and my sitting-rooms, my study, and my larder. The larder was supplied
by the fruit-trees, from which I was free to pick as I would, and in the study I
would sit for hours with some favourite book—Milton's "Paradise Lost" the chief
favourite of all. The birds must often have felt startled, when from the small
swinging form perching on a branch, came out in childish tones the "Thrones,
dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers," of Milton's stately and sonorous
verse. I liked to personify Satan, and to declaim the grand speeches of the
hero-rebel, and many a happy hour did I pass in Milton's heaven and hell, with
for companions Satan and "the Son," Gabriel and Abdiel. Then there was a terrace
running by the side of the churchyard, always dry in the wettest weather, and
bordered by an old wooden fence, over which clambered roses of every shade;
never was such a garden for roses as that of the Old Vicarage. At the end of the
terrace was a little summer-house, and in this a trap-door in the fence, which
swung open and displayed one of the fairest views in England. Sheer from your
feet downwards went the hill, and then far below stretched the wooded country
till your eye reached the towers of Windsor Castle, far away on the horizon. It
was the view at which Byron was never tired of gazing, as he lay on the flat
tombstone close by—Byron's tomb, as it is still called—of which he wrote:—
(1)
"Again I
behold where for hours I have pondered,
As reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone I lay,
Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wandered,
To catch the last gleam of the sun's setting ray."
26.
Reader mine,
if ever you go to Harrow, ask permission to enter the old garden, and try the
effect of that sudden burst of beauty, as you swing back the small trap-door at
the terrace end.
27.
Into this
house we moved on my eighth birthday, and for eleven years it was "home" to me,
left always with regret, returned to always with joy.
28.
Almost
immediately afterwards I left my mother for the first time; for one day,
visiting a family who lived close by, I found a stranger sitting in the
drawing-room, a lame lady with a strong face, which softened marvellously as she
smiled at the child who came dancing in; she called me to her presently, and
took me on her lap and talked to me, and on the following day our friend came to
see my mother, to ask if she would let me go away and be educated with this
lady's niece, coming home for the holidays regularly, but leaving my education
in her hands. At first my mother would not hear of it, for she and I scarcely
ever left each other; my love for her was an idolatry, hers for me a devotion.
(A foolish little story, about which I was unmercifully teased for years, marked
that absolute idolatry of her, which has not yet faded from my heart. In
tenderest rallying one day of the child who trotted after her everywhere,
content to sit, or stand, or wait, if only she might touch hand or dress of
"mamma," she said: "Little one" (the name by which she always called me), "if
you cling to mamma in this way, I must really get a string and tie you to my
apron, and how will you like that?" "O mamma, darling," came the fervent answer,
"do let it be in a knot." And, indeed, the tie of love between us was so tightly
knotted that nothing ever loosened it till the sword of Death cut that which
pain and trouble never availed to slacken in the slightest degree.) But it was
urged upon her that the advantages of education offered were such as no money
could purchase for me; that it would be a disadvantage for me to grow up in a
houseful of boys—and, in truth, I was as good a cricketer and climber as the
best of them—that my mother would soon be obliged to send me to school, unless
she accepted an offer which gave me every advantage of school without its
disadvantages. At last she yielded, and it was decided that Miss Marryat, on
returning home, should take me with her.
29.
Miss
Marryat—the favourite sister of Captain Marryat, the famous novelist—was a
maiden lady of large means. She had nursed her brother through the illness that
ended in his death, and had been living with her mother at Wimbledon Park. On
her mother's death she looked round for work which would make her useful in the
world, and finding that one of her brothers had a large family of girls, she
offered to take charge of one of them, and to educate her thoroughly. Chancing
to come to Harrow, my good fortune threw me in her way, and she took a fancy to
me and thought she would like to teach two little girls rather than one. Hence
her offer to my mother.
30.
Miss Marryat
had a perfect genius for teaching, and took in it the greatest delight. From
time to time she added another child to our party, sometimes a boy, sometimes a
girl. At first, with Amy Marryat and myself, there was a little boy, Walter
Powys, son of a clergyman with a large family, and him she trained for some
years, and then sent him on to school admirably prepared. She chose "her
children"—as she loved to call us—in very definite fashion. Each must be gently
born and gently trained, but in such position that the education freely given
should be a relief and aid to a slender parental purse. It was her delight to
seek out and aid those on whom poverty presses most heavily, when the need for
education for the children weighs on the proud and the poor. "Auntie" we all
called her, for she thought "Miss Marryat" seemed too cold and stiff. She taught
us everything herself except music, and for this she had a master, practising us
in composition, in recitation, in reading aloud English and French, and later,
German, devoting herself to training us in the soundest, most thorough fashion.
No words of mine can tell how much I owe her, not only of knowledge, but of that
love of knowledge which has remained with me ever since as a constant spur to
study.
31.
Her method of
teaching may be of interest to some, who desire to train children with least
pain, and the most enjoyment to the little ones themselves. First, we never used
a spelling-book—that torment of the small child—nor an English grammar. But we
wrote letters, telling of the things we had seen in our walks, or told again
some story we had read; these childish compositions she would read over with us,
correcting all faults of spelling, of grammar, of style, of cadence; a clumsy
sentence would be read aloud, that we might hear how unmusical it sounded, an
error in observation or expression pointed out. Then, as the letters recorded
what we had seen the day before, the faculty of observation was drawn out and
trained. "Oh, dear! I have nothing to say!" would come from a small child,
hanging over a slate. "Did you not go out for a walk yesterday?" Auntie would
question. "Yes," would be sighed out; "but there's nothing to say about it."
"Nothing to say! And you walked in the lanes for an hour and saw nothing, little
No-eyes? You must use your eyes better to-day." Then there was a very favourite
"lesson," which proved an excellent way of teaching spelling. We used to write
out lists of all the words we could think of which sounded the same but were
differently spelt. Thus: "key, quay," "knight, night," and so on, and great was
the glory of the child who found the largest number. Our French lessons—as the
German later—included reading from the very first. On the day on which we began
German we began reading Schiller's "Wilhelm Tell," and the verbs given to us to
copy out were those that had occurred in the reading. We learned much by heart,
but always things that in themselves were worthy to be learned. We were never
given the dry questions and answers which lazy teachers so much affect. We were
taught history by one reading aloud while the others worked—the boys as well as
the girls learning the use of the needle. "It's like a girl to sew," said a
little fellow, indignantly, one day. "It is like a baby to have to run after a
girl if you want a button sewn on," quoth Auntie. Geography was learned by
painting skeleton maps—an exercise much delighted in by small fingers—and by
putting together puzzle maps, in which countries in the map of a continent, or
counties in the map of a country, were always cut out in their proper shapes. I
liked big empires in those days; there was a solid satisfaction in putting down
Russia, and seeing what a large part of the map was filled up thereby.
32.
The only
grammar that we ever learned as grammar was the Latin, and that not until
composition had made us familiar with the use of the rules therein given. Auntie
had a great horror of children learning by rote things they did not understand,
and then fancying they knew them. "What do you mean by that expression, Annie?"
she would ask me. After feeble attempts to explain, I would answer: "Indeed,
Auntie, I know in my own head, but I can't explain." "Then, indeed, Annie, you
do not know in your own head, or you could explain, so that I might know in my
own head." And so a healthy habit was fostered of clearness of thought and of
expression. The Latin grammar was used because it was more perfect than the
modern grammars, and served as a solid foundation for modern languages.
33.
Miss Marryat
took a beautiful place, Fern Hill, near Charmouth, in Dorsetshire, on the
borders of Devon, and there she lived for some
five years, a centre of beneficence in the district. She started a Sunday
School, and a Bible Class after awhile for the lads too old for the school, who
clamoured for admission to her class in it. She visited the poor, taking help
wherever she went, and sending food from her own table to the sick. It was
characteristic of her that she would never give "scraps" to the poor, but would
have a basin brought in at dinner, and would cut the best slice to tempt the
invalid appetite. Money she rarely, if ever, gave, but she would find a day's
work, or busy herself to seek permanent employment for any one seeking aid.
Stern in rectitude herself, and iron to the fawning or the dishonest, her
influence, whether she was feared or loved, was always for good. Of the
strictest sect of the Evangelicals, she was an Evangelical. On the Sunday no
books were allowed save the Bible or the "Sunday at Home"; but she would try to
make the day bright by various little devices; by a walk with her in the garden;
by the singing of hymns, always attractive to children; by telling us wonderful
missionary stories of Moffat and Livingstone, whose adventures with savages and
wild beasts were as exciting as any tale of Mayne Reid's. We used to learn
passages from the Bible and hymns for repetition; a favourite amusement was a
"Bible puzzle," such as a description of some Bible scene, which was to be
recognised by the description. Then we taught in the Sunday School, for Auntie
would tell us that it was useless for us to learn if we did not try to help
those who had no one to teach them. The Sunday-school lessons had to be
carefully prepared on the Saturday, for we were always taught that work given to
the poor should be work that cost something to the giver. This principle,
regarded by her as an illustration of the text, "Shall I give unto the Lord my
God that which has cost me nothing?" ran through all her precept and her
practice. When in some public distress we children went to her crying, and
asking whether we could not help the little children who were starving, her
prompt reply was, "What will you give up for them?" And then she said that if we
liked to give up the use of sugar, we might thus each save sixpence a week to
give away. I doubt if a healthier lesson can be given to children than that of
personal self-denial for the good of others.
34.
Daily, when
our lessons were over, we had plenty of fun; long walks and rides, rides on a
lovely pony, who found small children most amusing, and on which the coachman
taught us to stick firmly, whatever his eccentricities of the moment; delightful
all-day picnics in the lovely country round Charmouth, Auntie our merriest
playfellow. Never was a healthier home, physically and mentally, made for young
things than in that quiet village. And then the delight of the holidays! The
pride of my mother at the good report of her darling's progress, and the renewal
of acquaintance with every nook and corner in the dear old house and garden.
35.
The dreamy
tendency in the child, that on its worldly side is fancy, imagination, on its
religious side is the germ of mysticism, and I believe it to be far more common
than many people think. But the remorseless materialism of the day—not the
philosophic materialism of the few, but the religious materialism of the
many—crushes out all the delicate buddings forth of the childish thought, and
bandages the eyes that might otherwise see. At first the child does not
distinguish between what it "sees" and what it "fancies"; the one is as real, as
objective, to it as the other, and it will talk to and play with its
dream-comrades as merrily as with children like itself. As a child, I myself
very much preferred the former, and never knew what it was to be lonely. But
clumsy grown-ups come along and tramp right through the dream-garden, and crush
the dream-flowers, and push the dream-children aside, and then say, in their
loud, harsh voices—not soft and singable like the dream-voices—"You must not
tell such naughty stories, Miss Annie; you give me the shivers, and your mamma
will be very vexed with you." But this tendency in me was too strong to be
stifled, and it found its food in the fairy tales I loved, and in the religious
allegories that I found yet more entrancing. How or when I learned to read, I do
not know, for I cannot remember the time when a book was not a delight. At five
years of age I must have read easily, for I remember being often unswathed from
a delightful curtain, in which I used to roll myself with a book, and told to
"go and play," while I was still a five-years'-old dot. And I had a habit of
losing myself so completely in the book that my name might be called in the room
where I was, and I never hear it, so that I used to be blamed for wilfully
hiding myself, when I had simply been away in fairyland, or lying trembling
beneath some friendly cabbage-leaf as a giant went by.
36.
I was between
seven and eight years of age when I first came across some children's allegories
of a religious kind, and a very little later came "Pilgrim's Progress," and
Milton's "Paradise Lost." Thenceforth my busy fancies
carried me ever into the fascinating world where boy-soldiers kept some outpost
for their absent Prince, bearing a shield with his sign of a red cross on it;
where devils shaped as dragons came swooping down on the pilgrim, but were
driven away defeated after hard struggle; where angels came and talked with
little children, and gave them some talisman which warned them of coming danger,
and lost its light if they were leaving the right path. What a dull, tire-some
world it was that I had to live in, I used to think to myself, when I was told
to be a good child, and not to lose my temper, and to be tidy, and not mess my
pinafore at dinner. How much easier to be a Christian if one could have a
red-cross shield and a white banner, and have a real devil to fight with, and a
beautiful Divine Prince to smile at you when the battle was over. How much more
exciting to struggle with a winged and clawed dragon, that you knew meant
mischief, than to look after your temper, that you never remembered you ought to
keep until you had lost it. If I had been Eve in the garden, that old serpent
would never have got the better of me; but how was a little girl to know that
she might not pick out the rosiest, prettiest apple from a tree that had no
serpent to show it was a forbidden one? And as I grew older the dreams and
fancies grew less fantastic, but more tinged with real enthusiasm. I read tales
of the early Christian martyrs, and passionately regretted I was born so late
when no suffering for religion was practicable; I would spend many an hour in
daydreams, in which I stood before Roman judges, before Dominican Inquisitors,
was flung to lions, tortured on the rack, burned at the stake; one day I saw
myself preaching some great new faith to a vast crowd of people, and they
listened and were converted, and I became a great religious leader. But always,
with a shock, I was brought back to earth, where there were no heroic deeds to
do, no lions to face, no judges to defy, but only some dull duty to be
performed. And I used to fret that I was born so late, when all the grand things
had been done, and when there was no chance of preaching and suffering for a new
religion.
37.
From the age
of eight my education accented the religious side of my character. Under Miss
Marryat's training my religious feeling received a strongly Evangelical bent,
but it was a subject of some distress to me that I could never look back to an
hour of "conversion"; when others gave their experiences, and spoke of the
sudden change they had felt, I used to be sadly conscious that no such change
had occurred in me, and I felt that my dreamy longings were very poor things
compared with the vigorous "sense of sin" spoken of by the preachers, and used
dolefully to wonder if I were "saved." Then I had an uneasy sense that I was
often praised for my piety when emulation and vanity were more to the front than
religion; as when I learned by heart the Epistle of James, far more to
distinguish myself for my good memory than from any love of the text itself; the
sonorous cadences of many parts of the Old and New Testaments pleased my ear,
and I took a dreamy pleasure in repeating them aloud, just as I would recite for
my own amusement hundreds of lines of Milton's "Paradise Lost," as I sat
swinging on some branch of a tree, lying back often on some swaying bough and
gazing into the unfathomable blue of the sky, till I lost myself in an ecstasy
of sound and colour, half chanting the melodious sentences and peopling all the
blue with misty forms. This facility of learning by heart, and the habit of
dreamy recitation, made me very familiar with the Bible and very apt with its
phrases. This stood me in good stead at the prayer-meetings dear to the
Evangelical, in which we all took part; in turn we were called on to pray
aloud—a terrible ordeal to me, for I was painfully shy when attention was called
to me; I used to suffer agonies while I waited for the dreaded words, "Now,
Annie dear, will you speak to our Lord." But when my trembling lips had forced
themselves into speech, all the nervousness used to vanish and I was swept away
by an enthusiasm that readily clothed itself in balanced sentences, and alack!
at the end, I too often hoped that God and Auntie had noticed that I prayed very
nicely—a vanity certainly not intended to be fostered by the pious exercise. On
the whole, the somewhat Calvinistic teaching tended, I think, to make me a
little morbid, especially as I always fretted silently after my mother. I
remember she was surprised on one of my home-comings, when Miss Marryat noted
"cheerfulness" as a want in my character, for at home I was ever the blithest of
children, despite my love of solitude; but away, there was always an aching for
home, and the stern religion cast somewhat of a shadow over me, though,
strangely enough, hell never came into my dreamings except in the interesting
shape it took in "Paradise Lost." After reading that, the devil was to me no
horned and hoofed horror, but the beautiful shadowed archangel, and I always
hoped that Jesus, my ideal Prince, would save him in the end. The things that
really frightened me were vague, misty presences that I felt were near, but
could not see; they were so real that I knew just where they were in the room,
and the peculiar terror they excited lay largely in the feeling that I was just
going to see them. If by chance I came across a ghost story it haunted me for
months, for I saw whatever unpleasant spectre was described; and there was one
horrid old woman in a tale by Sir Walter Scott, who glided up to the foot of
your bed and sprang on it in some eerie fashion and glared at you, and who made
my going to bed a terror to me for many weeks. I can still recall the feeling so
vividly that it almost frightens me now!
(1) CHAPTER III.
38.
GIRLHOOD.
39.
In the spring
of 1861 Miss Marryat announced her intention of going abroad, and asked my dear
mother to let me accompany her. A little nephew whom she had adopted was
suffering from cataract, and she desired to place him under the care of the
famous Düsseldorf oculist. Amy Marryat had been recalled home soon after the
death of her mother, who had died in giving birth to the child adopted by Miss
Marryat, and named at her desire after her favourite brother Frederick (Captain
Marryat). Her place had been taken by a girl a few months older than myself,
Emma Mann, one of the daughters of a clergyman, who had married Miss Stanley,
closely related, indeed, if I remember rightly, a sister of the Miss Mary
Stanley who did such noble work in nursing in the Crimea.
40.
For some
months we had been diligently studying German, for Miss Marryat thought it wise
that we should know a language fairly well before we visited the country of
which it was the native tongue. We had been trained also to talk French daily
during dinner, so we were not quite "helpless foreigners" when we steamed away
from St. Catherine's Docks, and found ourselves on the following day in Antwerp,
amid what seemed to us a very Babel of conflicting tongues. Alas for our
carefully spoken French, articulated laboriously! We were lost in that swirl of
disputing luggage-porters, and could not understand a word! But Miss Marryat was
quite equal to the occasion, being by no means new to travelling, and her French
stood the test triumphantly, and steered us safely to a hotel. On the morrow we
started again through Aix-la-Chapelle to Bonn, the town which lies
on the borders of the exquisite scenery of which the Siebengebirge and
Rolandseck serve as the magic portal. Our experiences in Bonn were not wholly satisfactory. Dear Auntie
was a maiden lady, looking on all young men as wolves to be kept far from her
growing lambs. Bonn
was a university town, and there was a mania just then prevailing there for all
things English. Emma was a plump, rosy, fair-haired typical English maiden, full
of frolic and harmless fun; I a very slight, pale, black-haired girl,
alternating between wild fun and extreme pensiveness. In the boarding-house to
which we went at first—the "Château du Rhin," a beautiful place overhanging the
broad, blue Rhine—there chanced to be staying the two sons of the late Duke of
Hamilton, the Marquis of Douglas and Lord Charles, with their tutor. They had
the whole drawing-room floor: we a sitting-room on the ground floor and bedrooms
above. The lads discovered that Miss Marryat did not like her "children" to be
on speaking terms with any of the "male sect."
41.
Here was a
fine source of amusement. They would make their horses caracole on the gravel in
front of our window; they would be just starting for their ride as we went for
walk or drive, and would salute us with doffed hat and low bow; they would
waylay us on our way downstairs with demure "Good morning"; they would go to
church and post themselves so that they could survey our pew, and Lord
Charles—who possessed the power of moving at will the whole skin of the
scalp—would wriggle his hair up and down till we were choking with laughter, to
our own imminent risk. After a month of this Auntie was literally driven out of
the pretty château, and took refuge in a girls' school, much to our disgust; but
still she was not allowed to be at rest. Mischievous students would pursue us
wherever we went; sentimental Germans, with gashed cheeks, would whisper
complimentary phrases as we passed; mere boyish nonsense of most harmless kind,
but the rather stern English lady thought it "not proper," and after three
months of Bonn we were sent home for the holidays, somewhat in disgrace. But we
had some lovely excursions during those months; such clambering up mountains,
such rows on the swift-flowing Rhine, such wanderings in exquisite valleys. I have a long
picture-gallery to retire into when I want to think of something fair, in
recalling the moon as it silvered the Rhine at the foot of Drachenfels, or the
soft, mist-veiled island where dwelt the lady who is consecrated for ever by
Roland's love.
42.
A couple of
months later we rejoined Miss Marryat in Paris, where we spent seven happy, workful
months. On Wednesdays and Saturdays we were free from lessons, and many a long
afternoon was passed in the galleries of the Louvre, till we became familiar
with the masterpieces of art gathered there from all lands. I doubt if there was
a beautiful church in Paris
that we did not visit during those weekly wanderings; that of St. Germain de
l'Auxerrois was my favourite—the church whose bell gave the signal for the
massacre of St. Bartholomew—for it contained such marvellous stained glass,
deepest, purest glory of colour that I had ever seen. The solemn beauty of Notre
Dame, the somewhat gaudy magnificence of La Sainte Chapelle, the stateliness of
La Madeleine, the impressive gloom of St. Roch, were all familiar to us. Other
delights were found in mingling with the bright crowds which passed along the
Champs Elysees and sauntered in the Bois de Boulogne, in strolling in the garden
of the Tuileries, in climbing to the top of every monument whence view of
Paris
could be gained. The Empire was then in its heyday of glitter, and we much
enjoyed seeing the brilliant escort of the imperial carriage, with plumes and
gold and silver dancing and glistening in the sunlight, while in the carriage
sat the exquisitely lovely empress, with the little boy beside her, touching his
cap shyly, but with something of her own grace, in answer to a greeting—the boy
who was thought to be born to an imperial crown, but whose brief career was to
find an ending from the spears of savages in a quarrel in which he had no
concern.
43.
In the spring
of 1862 it chanced that the Bishop of Ohio visited Paris, and Mr. Forbes, then English chaplain
at the Church of the Rue d'Aguesseau, arranged to have a confirmation. As said
above, I was under deep "religious impressions," and, in fact, with the
exception of that little aberration in Germany, I was decidedly a pious
girl. I looked on theatres (never having been to one) as traps set by Satan for
the destruction of foolish souls; I was quite determined never to go to a ball,
and was prepared to "suffer for conscience' sake "—little prig that I was—if I
was desired to go to one. I was consequently quite prepared to take upon myself
the vows made in my name at my baptism, and to renounce the world, the flesh,
and the devil, with a heartiness and sincerity only equalled by my profound
ignorance of the things I so readily resigned. That confirmation was to me a
very solemn matter; the careful preparation, the prolonged prayers, the
wondering awe as to the "seven-fold gifts of the Spirit," which were to be given
by "the laying on of hands," all tended to excitement. I could scarcely control
myself as I knelt at the altar rails, and felt as though the gentle touch of the
aged bishop, which fluttered for an instant on my bowed head, were the very
touch of the wing of that "Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove," whose presence had been
so earnestly invoked. Is there anything easier, I wonder, than to make a young
and sensitive girl "intensely religious"? This stay in Paris roused into activity an aspect of my
religious nature that had hitherto been latent. I discovered the sensuous
enjoyment that lay in introducing colour and fragrance and pomp into religious
services, so that the gratification of the aesthetic emotions became dignified
with the garb of piety. The picture-galleries of the Louvre, crowded with
Madonnas and saints, the Roman Catholic churches with their incense-laden air
and exquisite music, brought a new joy into my life, a more vivid colour to my
dreams. Insensibly, the colder, cruder Evangelicalism that I had never
thoroughly assimilated, grew warmer and more brilliant, and the ideal Divine
Prince of my childhood took on the more pathetic lineaments of the Man of
Sorrows, the deeper attractiveness of the suffering Saviour of Men. Keble's
"Christian Year" took the place of "Paradise Lost," and as my girlhood began to
bud towards womanhood, all its deeper currents set in the direction of religious
devotion. My mother did not allow me to read love stories, and my daydreams of
the future were scarcely touched by any of the ordinary hopes and fears of a
girl lifting her eyes towards the world she is shortly to enter. They were
filled with broodings over the days when girl-martyrs were blessed with visions
of the King of Martyrs, when sweet St. Agnes saw her celestial Bridegroom, and
angels stooped to whisper melodies in St. Cecilia's raptured ear. "Why then and
not now?" my heart would question, and I would lose myself in these fancies,
never happier than when alone.
44.
The summer of
1862 was spent with Miss Marryat at Sidmouth, and, wise woman that she was, she
now carefully directed our studies with a view to our coming enfranchisement
from the "schoolroom." More and more were we trained to work alone; our
leading-strings were slackened, so that we never felt them save when we
blundered; and I remember that when I once complained, in loving fashion, that
she was "teaching me so little," she told me that I was getting old enough to be
trusted to work by myself, and that I must not expect to "have Auntie for a
crutch all through life." And I venture to say that this gentle withdrawal of
constant supervision and teaching was one of the wisest and kindest things that
this noble-hearted woman ever did for us. It is the usual custom to keep girls
in the schoolroom until they "come out"; then, suddenly, they are left to their
own devices, and, bewildered by their unaccustomed freedom, they waste time that
might be priceless for their intellectual growth. Lately, the opening of
universities to women has removed this danger for the more ambitious; but at the
time of which I am writing no one dreamed of the changes soon to be made in the
direction of the "higher education of women."
45.
During the
winter of 1862-63 Miss Marryat was in
London, and for a few months I remained there with her,
attending the admirable French classes of M. Roche. In the spring I returned
home to Harrow, going up each week to the
classes; and when these were over, Auntie told me that she thought all she could
usefully do was done, and that it was time that I should try my wings alone. So
well, however, had she succeeded in her aims, that my emancipation from the
schoolroom was but the starting-point of more eager study, though now the study
turned into the lines of thought towards which my personal tendencies most
attracted me. German I continued to read with a master, and music, under the
marvellously able teaching of Mr. John Farmer, musical director of
Harrow
School, took up much of my
time. My dear mother had a passion for music, and Beethoven and Bach were her
favourite composers. There was scarcely a sonata of Beethoven's that I did not
learn, scarcely a fugue of Bach's that I did not master. Mendelssohn's "Lieder"
gave a lighter recreation, and many a happy evening did we spend, my mother and
I, over the stately strains of the blind Titan, and the sweet melodies of the
German wordless orator. Musical "At Homes," too, were favourite amusements at
Harrow, and at these my facile fingers made me a welcome guest.
46.
Thus set free
from the schoolroom at 16½, an only daughter, I could do with my time as I
would, save for the couple of hours a day given to music, for the satisfaction
of my mother. From then till I became engaged, just before I was 19, my life
flowed on smoothly, one current visible to all and dancing in the sunlight, the
other running underground, but full and deep and strong. As regards my outer
life, no girl had a brighter, happier life than mine; studying all the mornings
and most of the afternoons in my own way, and spending the latter part of the
day in games and walks and rides—varied with parties at which I was one of the
merriest of guests. I practised archery so zealously that I carried up
triumphantly as prize for the best score the first ring I ever possessed, while
croquet found me a most eager devotee. My darling mother certainly "spoiled" me,
so far as were concerned all the small roughnesses of life. She never allowed a
trouble of any kind to touch me, and cared only that all worries should fall on
her, all joys on me. I know now what I never dreamed then, that her life was one
of serious anxiety. The heavy burden of my brother's school and college life
pressed on her constantly, and her need of money was often serious. A lawyer
whom she trusted absolutely cheated her systematically, using for his own
purposes the remittances she made for payment of liabilities, thus keeping upon
her a constant drain. Yet for me all that was wanted was ever there. Was it a
ball to which we were going? I need never think of what I would wear till the
time for dressing arrived, and there laid out ready for me was all I wanted,
every detail complete from top to toe. No hand but hers must dress my hair,
which, loosed, fell in dense curly masses nearly to my knees; no hand but hers
must fasten dress and deck with flowers, and if I sometimes would coaxingly ask
if I might not help by sewing in laces, or by doing some trifle in aid, she
would kiss me and bid me run to my books or my play, telling me that her only
pleasure in life was caring for her "treasure." Alas! how lightly we take the
self-denying labour that makes life so easy, ere yet we have known what life
means when the protecting motherwing is withdrawn. So guarded and shielded had
been my childhood and youth from every touch of pain and anxiety that love could
bear for me, that I never dreamed that life might be a heavy burden, save as I
saw it in the poor I was sent to help; all the joy of those happy years I took,
not ungratefully I hope, but certainly with as glad unconsciousness of anything
rare in it as I took the sunlight. Passionate love, indeed, I gave to my
darling, but I never knew all I owed her till I passed out of her tender
guardianship, till I left my mother's home. Is such training wise? I am not
sure. It makes the ordinary roughnesses of life come with so stunning a shock,
when one goes out into the world, that one is apt to question whether some
earlier initiation into life's sterner mysteries would not be wiser for the
young. Yet it is a fair thing to have that joyous youth to look back upon, and
at least it is a treasury of memory that no thief can steal in the struggles of
later life. "Sunshine" they called me in those bright days of merry play and
earnest study. But that study showed the bent of my thought and linked itself to
the hidden life; for the Fathers of the early Christian Church now became my
chief companions, and I pored over the Shepherd of Hernias, the Epistles of
Polycarp, Barnabas, Ignatius, and Clement, the commentaries of Chrysostom, the
confessions of Augustine. With these I studied the writings of Pusey, Liddon,
and Keble, with many another smaller light, joying in the great conception of a
Catholic Church, lasting through the centuries, built on the foundations of
apostles and of martyrs, stretching from the days of Christ Himself down to our
own—"One Lord, one Faith one Baptism," and I myself a child of that Holy Church.
The hidden life grew stronger, constantly fed by these streams of study; weekly
communion became the centre round which my devotional life revolved, with its
ecstatic meditation, its growing intensity of conscious contact with the Divine;
I fasted, according to the ordinances of the Church; occasionally flagellated
myself to see if I could bear physical pain, should I be fortunate enough ever
to tread the pathway trodden by the saints; and ever the Christ was the figure
round which clustered all my hopes and longings, till I often felt that the very
passion of, my devotion would draw Him down from His throne in heaven, present
visibly in form as I felt Him invisibly in spirit. To serve Him through His
Church became more and more a definite ideal in my life, and my thoughts began
to turn towards some kind of "religious life," in which I might prove my love by
sacrifice and turn my passionate gratitude into active service.
47.
Looking back
to-day over my life, I see that its keynote—through all the blunders, and the
blind mistakes, and clumsy follies—has been this longing for sacrifice to
something felt as greater than the self. It has been so strong and so persistent
that I recognise it now as a tendency brought over from a previous life and
dominating the present one; and this is shown by the fact that to follow it is
not the act of a deliberate and conscious will, forcing self into submission and
giving up with pain something the heart desires, but the following it is a
joyous springing forward along the easiest path, the "sacrifice" being the
supremely attractive thing, not to make which would be to deny the deepest
longings of the soul, and to feel oneself polluted and dishonoured. And it is
here that the misjudgment comes in of many generous hearts who have spoken
sometimes lately so strongly in my praise. For the efforts to serve have not
been painful acts of self-denial, but the yielding to an overmastering desire.
We do not praise the mother who, impelled by her protecting love, feeds her
crying infant and stills its wailings at her breast; rather should we blame her
if she turned aside from its weeping to play with some toy. And so with all
those whose ears are opened to the wailings of the great orphan Humanity; they
are less to be praised for helping than they would be to be blamed if they stood
aside. I now know that it is those wailings that have stirred my heart through
life, and that I brought with me the ears open to hear them from previous lives
of service paid to men. It was those lives that drew for the child the alluring
pictures of martyrdom, breathed into the girl the passion of devotion, sent the
woman out to face scoff and odium, and drove her finally into the Theosophy that
rationalises sacrifice, while opening up possibilities of service beside which
all other hopes grow pale.
48.
The Easter of
1866 was a memorable date in my life. I was introduced to the clergyman I
married, and I met and conquered my first religious doubt. A little mission
church had been opened the preceding Christmas in a very poor district of
Clapham. My grandfather's house was near at hand, in Albert Square, and a favourite aunt and
myself devoted ourselves a good deal to this little church, as enthusiastic
girls and women will. At Easter we decorated it with spring flowers, with dewy
primroses and fragrant violets, and with the yellow bells of the wild daffodil,
to the huge delight of the poor who crowded in, and of the little London children who had,
many of them, never seen a flower. Here I met the Rev. Frank Besant, a young Cambridge man, who had
just taken orders, and was serving the little mission church as deacon; strange
that at the same time I should meet the man I was to marry, and the doubts which
were to break the marriage tie. For in the Holy Week preceding that Easter Eve,
I had been—as English and Roman Catholics are wont to do—trying to throw the
mind back to the time when the commemorated events occurred, and to follow, step
by step, the last days of the Son of Man, living, as it were, through those last
hours, so that I might be ready to kneel before the cross on Good Friday, to
stand beside the sepulchre on Easter Day. In order to facilitate the realisation
of those last sacred days of God incarnate on earth, working out man's
salvation, I resolved to write a brief history of that week, compiled from the
Four Gospels, meaning them to try and realise each day the occurrences that had
happened on the corresponding date in A.D. 33, and so to follow those "blessed
feet" step by step, till they were
49.
"... nailed
for our advantage to the bitter cross."
50.
With the
fearlessness which springs from ignorance I sat down to my task. My method was
as follows:—
MATTHEW.
|
MARK.
|
LUKE.
|
JOHN.
|
PALM
SUNDAY.
|
PALM
SUNDAY.
|
PALM
SUNDAY.
|
PALM
SUNDAY.
|
Rode into Jerusalem. Purified the
Temple.
Returned to Bethany.
|
Rode into Jerusalem. Returned to Bethany.
|
Rode into Jerusalem. Purified the
Temple. Note:
"Taught daily in the temple."
|
Rode into Jerusalem. Spoke in the
Temple.
|
MONDAY.
|
MONDAY.
|
MONDAY.
|
MONDAY.
|
Cursed the fig-tree. Taught in the Temple,
and spake many parables. No breaks shown, but the fig-tree (xxi.19) did not
wither till Tuesday (see Mark).
|
Cursed the fig-tree. Purified the
Temple. Went out of city.
|
Like Matthew.
|
——
|
TUESDAY.
|
TUESDAY.
|
TUESDAY.
|
TUESDAY.
|
All chaps, xxi. 20, xxii-xxv., spoken on Tuesday, for xxvi. 2
gives
Passover as "after two days."
|
Saw fig-tree withered up. Then discourses.
|
Discourses. No date shown.
|
——
|
WEDNESDAY.
|
WEDNESDAY.
|
WEDNESDAY.
|
WEDNESDAY.
|
Blank.
(Possibly remained in Bethany, the alabaster box of ointment.)
|
THURSDAY.
|
THURSDAY.
|
THURSDAY.
|
THURSDAY.
|
Preparation of Passover. Eating of Passover, and institution of the Holy
Eucharist. Gethsemane. Betrayal by Judas. Led captive to Caiaphas.
Denied by St. Peter.
|
Same as Matt.
|
Same as Matt.
|
Discourses with disciples, but before the Passover. Washes the
disciples' feet. Nothing said of Holy Eucharist, nor
of agony in Gethsemane. Malchus' ear. Led captives to Annas first.
Then to Caiaphas. Denied by St. Peter.
|
FRIDAY.
|
FRIDAY.
|
FRIDAY.
|
FRIDAY.
|
Led to Pilate. Judas hangs himself. Tried. Condemned to death. Scourged and
mocked. Led to crucifixion. Darkness from 12 to 3. Died at 3.
|
As Matthew, but hour of crucifixion given, 9 a.m.
|
Led to Pilate. Sent to Herod. Sent back to Pilate. Rest as in Matthew; but
one
malefactor repents.
|
Taken to Pilate. Jews would not enter, that they might eat the Passover.
Scourged by Pilate before condemnation, and mocked. Shown by Pilate to Jews
at 12.
|
51.
I became
uneasy as I proceeded with my task, for discrepancies leaped at me from my four
columns; the uneasiness grew as the contradictions increased, until I saw with a
shock of horror that my "harmony" was a discord,
and a doubt of the veracity of the story sprang up like a serpent hissing in my
face. It was struck down in a moment, for to me to doubt was sin, and to have
doubted on the very eve of the Passion was an added crime. Quickly I assured
myself that these apparent contradictions were necessary as tests of faith, and
I forced myself to repeat Tertullian's famous "Credo quia impossible," till,
from a wooden recital, it became a triumphant affirmation. I reminded myself
that St. Peter had said of the Pauline Epistles that in them were "some things
hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest ... unto
their own destruction." I shudderingly recognised that I must be very unlearned
and unstable to find discord among the Holy Evangelists, and imposed on myself
an extra fast as penance for my ignorance and lack of firmness in the faith. For
my mental position was one to which doubt was one of the worst of sins. I knew
that there were people like Colenso, who questioned the infallibility of the
Bible, but I remembered how the Apostle John had fled from the Baths when
Cerinthus entered them, lest the roof should fall on the heretic, and crush any
one in his neighbourhood, and I looked on all heretics with holy horror. Pusey
had indoctrinated me with his stern hatred of all heresy, and I was content to
rest with him on that faith, "which must be old because it is eternal, and must
be unchangeable because it is true." I would not even read the works of my
mothers favourite Stanley, because he was "unsound," and because Pusey had
condemned his "variegated use of words which destroys all definiteness of
meaning"—a clever and pointed description, be it said in passing, of the Dean's
exquisite phrases, capable of so many readings. It can then be imagined with
what a stab of pain this first doubt struck me, and with what haste I smothered
it up, buried it, and smoothed the turf over its grave. But it had been there,
and it left its mark.
(1) CHAPTER IV.
52.
MARRIAGE.
53.
The last year
of my girlish freedom was drawing to its close; how shall I hope to make
commonsense readers understand how I became betrothed maiden ere yet nineteen,
girl-wife when twenty years had struck? Looking back over twenty-five years, I
feel a profound pity for the girl standing at that critical point of life, so
utterly, hopelessly ignorant of all that marriage meant, so filled with
impossible dreams, so unfitted for the rôle of wife. As I have said, my
day-dreams held little place for love, partly from the absence of love novels
from my reading, partly from the mystic fancies that twined themselves round the
figure of the Christ. Catholic books of devotion—English or Roman, it matters
not, for to a large extent they are translations of the same hymns and
prayers—are exceedingly glowing in their language, and the dawning feelings of
womanhood unconsciously lend to them a passionate fervour. I longed to spend my
time in worshipping Jesus, and was, as far as my inner life was concerned,
absorbed in that passionate love of "the Saviour" which, among emotional
Catholics, really is the human passion of love transferred to an ideal—for women
to Jesus, for men to the Virgin Mary. In order to show that I am not here
exaggerating, I subjoin a few of the prayers in which I found daily delight, and
I do this in order to show how an emotional girl may be attracted by these
so-called devotional exercises:—
54.
"O crucified
Love, raise in me fresh ardours of love and consolation, that it may henceforth
be the greatest torment I can endure ever to offend Thee; that it may be my
greatest delight to please Thee."
55.
"Let the
remembrance of Thy death, O Lord Jesu, make me to desire and pant after Thee,
that I may delight in Thy gracious presence."
56.
"O most sweet
Jesu Christ, I, unworthy sinner, yet redeemed by Thy precious blood.... Thine I
am and will be, in life and in death."
57.
"O Jesu,
beloved, fairer than the sons of men, draw me after Thee with the cords of Thy
love."
58.
"Blessed are
Thou, O most merciful God, who didst vouchsafe to espouse me to the heavenly
Bridegroom in the waters of baptism, and hast imparted Thy body and blood as a
new gift of espousal and the meet consummation of Thy love."
59.
"O most sweet
Lord Jesu, transfix the affections of my inmost soul with that most joyous and
most healthful wound of Thy love, with true, serene, most holy, apostolical
charity; that my soul may ever languish and melt with entire love and longing
for Thee. Let it desire Thee and faint for Thy courts; long to be dissolved and
be with Thee."
60.
"Oh, that I
could embrace Thee with that most burning love of angels."
61.
"Let Him kiss
me with the kisses of His mouth; for Thy love is better than wine. Draw me, we
will run after Thee. The king hath brought me into his chambers.... Let my soul,
O Lord, feel the sweetness of Thy presence. May it taste how sweet Thou art....
May the sweet and burning power of Thy love, I beseech Thee, absorb my soul."
62.
All girls
have in them the germ of passion, and the line of its development depends on the
character brought into the world, and the surrounding influences of education. I
had but two ideals in my childhood and youth, round whom twined these budding
tendrils of passion; they were my mother and the Christ. I know this may seem
strange, but I am trying to state things as they were in this life-story, and
not give mere conventionalisms, and so it was. I had men friends, but no
lovers—at least, to my knowledge, for I have since heard that my mother received
two or three offers of marriage for me, but declined them on account of my youth
and my childishness—friends with whom I liked to talk, because they knew more
than I did; but they had no place in my day-dreams. These were more and more
filled with the one Ideal Man, and my hopes turned towards the life of the
Sister of Mercy, who ever worships the Christ, and devotes her life to the
service of His poor. I knew my dear mother would set herself against this idea,
but it nestled warm at my heart, for ever that idea of escaping from the humdrum
of ordinary life by some complete sacrifice lured me onwards with its
overmastering fascination.
63.
Now one
unlucky result of this view of religion is the idealisation of the clergyman,
the special messenger and chosen servant of the Lord. Far more lofty than any
title bestowed by earthly monarch is that patent of nobility straight from the
hand of the "King of kings," that seems to give to the mortal something of the
authority of the immortal, and to crown the head of the priest with the diadem
that belongs to those who are "kings and priests unto God." Viewed in this way,
the position of the priest's wife seems second only to that of the nun, and has,
therefore, a wonderful attractiveness, an attractiveness in which the particular
clergyman affected plays a very subordinate part; it is the "sacred office," the
nearness to "holy things," the consecration which seems to include the wife—it
is these things that shed a glamour over the clerical life which attracts most
those who are most apt to self-devotion, most swayed by imagination. And the
saddest pity of all this is that the glamour is most over those whose brains are
quick, whose hearts are pure, who are responsive to all forms of noble emotions,
all suggestions of personal self-sacrifice; if such in later life rise to the
higher emotions whose shadows have attracted them, and to that higher
self-sacrifice whose whispers reached them in their early youth, then the false
prophet's veil is raised, the poverty of the conception seen, and the life is
either wrecked, or through storm-wind and surge of battling billows, with loss
of mast and sail, is steered by firm hand into the port of a nobler faith.
64.
That summer
of 1866 saw me engaged to the young clergyman I had met at the mission church in
the spring, our knowledge of each other being an almost negligeable quantity. We
were thrown together for a week, the only two young ones in a small party of
holiday-makers, and in our walks, rides, and drives we were naturally
companions; an hour or two before he left he asked me to marry him, taking my
consent for granted as I had allowed him such full companionship—a perfectly
fair assumption with girls accustomed to look on all men as possible husbands,
but wholly mistaken as regarded myself, whose thoughts were in quite other
directions. Startled, and my sensitive pride touched by what seemed to my strict
views an assumption that I had been flirting, I hesitated, did not follow my
first impulse of refusal, but took refuge in silence; my suitor had to catch his
train, and bound me over to silence till he could himself speak to my mother,
urging authoritatively that it would be dishonourable of me to break his
confidence, and left me—the most upset and distressed little person on the
Sussex coast. The fortnight that followed was the first unhappy one of my life,
for I had a secret from my mother, a secret which I passionately longed to tell
her, but dared not speak at the risk of doing a dishonourable thing. On meeting
my suitor on our return to town I positively refused to keep silence any longer,
and then out of sheer weakness and fear of inflicting pain I drifted into an
engagement with a man I did not pretend to love. "Drifted" is the right word,
for two or three months passed, on the ground that I was so much of a child,
before my mother would consent to a definite engagement; my dislike of the
thought of marriage faded before the idea of becoming the wife of a priest,
working ever in the Church and among the poor. I had no outlet for my growing
desire for usefulness in my happy and peaceful home-life, where all religious
enthusiasm was regarded as unbalanced and unbecoming; all that was deepest and
truest in my nature chafed against my easy, useless days, longed for work,
yearned to devote itself, as I had read women saints had done, to the service of
the Church and of the poor, to the battling against sin and misery—what empty
names sin and misery then were to me! "You will have more opportunities for
doing good as a clergyman's wife than as anything else," was one of the pleas
urged on my reluctance.
65.
In the autumn
I was definitely betrothed, and I married fourteen months later. Once, in the
interval, I tried to break the engagement, but, on my broaching the subject to
my mother, all her pride rose up in revolt. Would I, her daughter, break my
word, would I dishonour myself by jilting a man I had pledged myself to marry?
She could be stern where honour was involved, that sweet mother of mine, and I
yielded to her wish as I had been ever wont to do, for a look or a word from her
had ever been my law, save where religion was concerned. So I married in the
winter of 1867 with no more idea of the marriage relation than if I had been
four years old instead of twenty. My dreamy life, into which no knowledge of
evil had been allowed to penetrate, in which I had been guarded from all pain,
shielded from all anxiety, kept, innocent on all questions of sex, was no
preparation for married existence, and left me defenceless to face a rude
awakening. Looking back on it all, I deliberately say that no more fatal blunder
can be made than to train a girl to womanhood in ignorance of all life's duties
and burdens, and then to let her face them for the first time away from all the
old associations, the old helps, the old refuge on the mother's breast. That
"perfect innocence" may be very beautiful, but it is a perilous possession, and
Eve should have the knowledge of good and evil ere she wanders forth from the
paradise of a mother's love. Many an unhappy marriage dates from its very
beginning, from the terrible shock to a young girl's sensitive modesty and
pride, her helpless bewilderment and fear. Men, with their public school and
college education, or the knowledge that comes by living in the outside world,
may find it hard to realise the possibility of such infantile ignorance in many
girls. None the less, such ignorance is a fact in the case of some girls at
least, and no mother should let her daughter, blindfold, slip her neck under the
marriage yoke.
66.
Before
leaving the harbourage of girlhood to set sail on the troublous sea of life,
there is an occurrence of which I must make mention, as it marks my first
awakening of interest in the outer world of political struggle. In the autumn of
1867 my mother and I were staying with some dear friends of ours, the Robertses,
at Pendleton, near Manchester. Mr. Roberts was "the poor man's lawyer," in the
affectionate phrase used of him by many a hundred men. He was a close friend of
Ernest Jones, and was always ready to fight a poor man's battle without fee. He
worked hard in the agitation which saved women from working in the mines, and I
have heard him tell how he had seen them toiling, naked to the waist, with short
petticoats barely reaching to their knees, rough, foul-tongued, brutalised out
of all womanly decency and grace; and how he had seen little children working
there too, babies of three and four set to watch a door, and falling asleep at
their work to be roused by curse and kick to the unfair toil. The old man's eye
would begin to flash and his voice to rise as he told of these horrors, and then
his face would soften as he added that, after it was all over and the slavery
was put an end to, as he went through a coal district the women standing at
their doors would lift up their children to see "Lawyer Roberts" go by, and
would bid "God bless him" for what he had done. This dear old man was my first
tutor in Radicalism, and I was an apt pupil. I had taken no interest in
politics, but had unconsciously reflected more or less the decorous Whiggism
which had always surrounded me. I regarded "the poor" as folk to be educated,
looked after, charitably dealt with, and always treated with most perfect
courtesy, the courtesy being due from me, as a lady, to all equally, whether
they were rich or poor. But to Mr. Roberts "the poor" were the working-bees, the
wealth producers, with a right to self-rule not to looking after, with a right
to justice, not to charity, and he preached his doctrines to me in season and
out of season. I was a pet of his, and used often to drive him to his office in
the morning, glorying much in the fact that my skill was trusted in guiding a
horse through the crowded Manchester streets. During these drives, and on all
other available occasions, Mr. Roberts would preach to me the cause of the
people. "What do you think of John Bright?" he demanded suddenly one day,
looking at me with fiery eyes from under heavy brows. "I have never thought of
him at all," was the careless answer. "Isn't he a rather rough sort of man, who
goes about making rows?" "There, I thought so!" he thundered at me fiercely.
"That's just what I say. I believe some of you fine ladies would not go to
heaven if you had to rub shoulders with John Bright, the noblest man God ever
gave to the cause of the poor."
67.
This was the
hot-tempered and lovable "demagogue," as he was called, with whom we were
staying when Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasy, two Fenian leaders, were arrested
in Manchester and put on their trial. The whole Irish population became seething
with excitement, and on September 18th the police van carrying them to Salford
Gaol was stopped at the Bellevue Railway Arch by the sudden fall of one of the
horses, shot from the side of the road. In a moment the van was surrounded, and
crowbars were wrenching at the van door. It resisted; a body of police was
rapidly approaching, and if the rescue was to be effective the door must be
opened. The rescuers shouted to Brett, the constable inside, to pass out his
keys; he refused, and some one exclaimed, "Blow off the lock!" In a moment the
muzzle of a revolver was against the lock, and it was blown off; but Brett,
stooping down to look through the keyhole, received the bullet in his head, and
fell dying as the door flew open. Another moment, and Allen, a lad of seventeen,
had wrenched open the doors of the compartments occupied by Kelly and Deasy,
dragged them out, and while two or three hurried them off to a place of safety,
the others threw themselves between the fugitives and the police, and with
levelled revolvers guarded their flight. The Fenian leaders once safe, they
scattered, and young William Allen, whose one thought had been for his chiefs,
seeing them safe, fired his revolver in the air, for he would not shed blood in
his own defence. Disarmed by his own act, he was set on by the police, brutally
struck down, kicked and stoned, and was dragged off to gaol, faint and bleeding,
to meet there some of his comrades in much the same plight as himself. Then
Manchester went mad, and race-passions flared up into flame; no Irish workman
was safe in a crowd of Englishmen, no Englishman safe in the Irish quarter. The
friends of the prisoners besieged "Lawyer Roberts's" house, praying his aid, and
he threw his whole fiery soul into their defence. The man who had fired the
accidentally fatal shot was safely out of the way, and none of the others had
hurt a human being. A Special Commission was issued, with Mr. Justice Blackburn
at its head—"the hanging judge," groaned Mr. Roberts—and it was soon in
Manchester, for all Mr. Roberts's efforts to get the venue of the trial changed
were futile, though of fair trial then in Manchester there was no chance. On
October 25th the prisoners were actually brought up before the magistrates in
irons, and Mr. Ernest Jones, their counsel, failing in his protest against this
outrage, threw down his brief and left the court. So great was the haste with
which the trial was hurried on that on the 29th Allen, Larkin, Gould (O'Brien),
Maguire, and Condon were standing in the dock before the Commission charged with
murder.
68.
My first
experience of an angry crowd was on that day as we drove to the court; the
streets were barricaded, the soldiers were under arms, every approach to the
court crowded with surging throngs. At last our carriage was stopped as we were
passing at a foot's pace through an Irish section of the crowd, and various
vehement fists came through the window, with hearty curses at the "d—d English
who were going to see the boys murdered." The situation was critical, for we
were two women and three girls, when I bethought myself that we were unknown,
and gently touched the nearest fist: "Friends, these are Mr. Roberts' wife and
daughters." "Roberts! Lawyer Roberts! God bless Roberts! Let his carriage
through." And all the scowling faces became smile-wreathen, and curses changed
to cheers, as a road to the court steps was cleared for us.
69.
Alas! if
there was passion on behalf of the prisoners outside, there was passion against
them within, and the very opening of the trial showed the spirit that animated
the prosecution and the bench. Digby Seymour, Q.C., and Ernest Jones, were
briefed for the defence, and Mr. Roberts did not think that they exercised
sufficiently their right of challenge; he knew, as we all did, that many on the
panel had loudly proclaimed their hostility to the Irish, and Mr. Roberts
persisted in challenging them as his counsel would not. In vain Judge Blackburn
threatened to commit the rebellious solicitor: "These men's lives are at stake,
my lord," was his indignant plea. "Remove that man!" cried the angry judge, but
as the officers of the court came forward very slowly—for all poor men loved and
honoured the sturdy fighter—he changed his mind and let him stay. Despite all
his efforts, the jury contained a man who had declared that he "didn't care what
the evidence was, he would hang every d—d Irishman of the lot." And the result
showed that he was not alone in his view, for evidence of the most disreputable
kind was admitted; women of the lowest type were put into the box as witnesses,
and their word taken as unchallengeable; thus was destroyed an alibi for
Maguire, afterwards accepted by the Crown, a free pardon being issued on the
strength of it. Nothing could save the doomed men from the determined verdict,
and I could see from where I was sitting into a little room behind the bench,
where an official was quietly preparing the black caps before the verdict had
been delivered. The foregone "Guilty" was duly repeated as verdict on each of
the five cases, and the prisoners asked if they had anything to say why sentence
of death should not be passed on them. Allen, boy as he was, made a very brave
and manly speech; he had not fired, save in the air—if he had done so he might
have escaped; he had helped to free Kelly and Deasy, and did not regret it; he
was willing to die for Ireland. Maguire and Condon (he also was reprieved)
declared they were not present, but, like Allen, were ready to die for their
country. Sentence of death was passed, and, as echo to the sardonic "The Lord
have mercy on your souls," rang back from the dock in five clear voices, with
never a quiver of fear in them, "God save Ireland!" and the men passed one by
one from the sight of my tear-dimmed eyes.
70.
It was a
sorrowful time that followed; the despair of the heart-broken girl who was
Allen's sweetheart, and who cried to us on her knees, "Save my William!" was
hard to see; nothing we or any one could do availed to avert the doom, and on
November 23rd Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien were hanged outside Salford Gaol. Had
they striven for freedom in Italy England would have honoured them; here she
buried them as common murderers in quicklime in the prison yard.
71.
I have found,
with a keen sense of pleasure, that Mr. Bradlaugh and myself were in 1867 to
some extent co-workers, although we knew not of each other's existence, and
although he was doing much, and I only giving such poor sympathy as a young girl
might, who was only just awakening to the duty of political work. I read in the
National Reformer for November 24, 1867, that in the preceding week he was
pleading on Clerkenwell Green for these men's lives:—"According to the evidence
at the trial, Deasy and Kelly were illegally arrested. They had been arrested
for vagrancy of which no evidence was given, and apparently remanded for felony
without a shadow of justification. He had yet to learn that in England the same
state of things existed as in Ireland; he had yet to learn that an illegal
arrest was sufficient ground to detain any of the citizens of any country in the
prisons of this one. If he were illegally held, he was justified in using enough
force to procure his release. Wearing a policeman's coat gave no authority when
the officer exceeded his jurisdiction. He had argued this before Lord Chief
Justice Erie in the Court of Common Pleas, and that learned judge did not
venture to contradict the argument which he submitted. There was another reason
why they should spare these men, although he hardly expected the Government to
listen, because the Government sent down one of the judges who was predetermined
to convict the prisoners; it was that the offence was purely a political one.
The death of Brett was a sad mischance, but no one who read the evidence could
regard the killing of Brett as an intentional murder. Legally, it was murder;
morally, it was homicide in the rescue of a political captive. If it were a
question of the rescue of the political captives of Varignano, or of political
captives in Bourbon, in Naples, or in Poland, or in Paris, even earls might be
found so to argue. Wherein is our sister Ireland less than these? In executing
these men, they would throw down the gauntlet for terrible reprisals. It was a
grave and solemn question. It had been said by a previous speaker that they were
prepared to go to any lengths to save these Irishmen. They were not. He wished
they were. If they were, if the men of England, from one end to the other, were
prepared to say, 'These men shall not be executed,' they would not be. He was
afraid they had not pluck enough for that. Their moral courage was not equal to
their physical strength. Therefore he would not say that they were prepared to
do so. They must plead ad misericordiam. He appealed to the press, which
represented the power of England; to that press which in its panic-stricken
moments had done much harm, and which ought now to save these four doomed men.
If the press demanded it, no Government would be mad enough to resist. The
memory of the blood which was shed in 1798 rose up like a bloody ghost against
them to-day. He only feared that what they said upon the subject might do the
poor men more harm than good. If it were not so, he would coin words that should
speak in words of fire. As it was, he could only say to the Government: You are
strong to-day; you hold these men's lives in your hands; but if you want to
reconcile their country to you, if you want to win back Ireland, if you want to
make her children love you—then do not embitter their hearts still more by
taking the lives of these men. Temper your strength with mercy; do not use the
sword of justice like one of vengeance, for the day may come when it shall be
broken in your hands, and you yourselves brained by the hilt of the weapon you
have so wickedly wielded." In October he had printed a plea for Ireland, strong
and earnest, asking:—
72.
"Where is our
boasted English freedom when you cross to Kingstown pier? Where has it been for
near two years? The Habeas Corpus Act suspended, the gaols crowded, the steamers
searched, spies listening at shebeen shops for sedition, and the end of it a
Fenian panic in England. Oh, before it be too late, before more blood stain the
pages of our present history, before we exasperate and arouse bitter
animosities, let us try and do justice to our sister land. Abolish once and for
all the land laws, which in their iniquitous operation have ruined her
peasantry. Sweep away the leech-like Church which has sucked her vitality, and
has given her back no word even of comfort in her degradation. Turn her barracks
into flax mills, encourage a spirit of independence in her citizens, restore to
her people the protection of the law, so that they may speak without fear of
arrest, and beg them to plainly and boldly state their grievances. Let a
commission of the best and wisest amongst Irishmen, with some of our highest
English judges added, sit solemnly to hear all complaints, and then let us
honestly legislate, not for the punishment of the discontented, but to remove
the causes of the discontent. It is not the Fenians who have depopulated
Ireland's strength and increased her misery. It is not the Fenians who have
evicted tenants by the score. It is not the Fenians who have checked
cultivation. Those who have caused the wrong at least should frame the remedy."
73.
In December,
1867, I sailed out of the safe harbour of my happy and peaceful girlhood on to
the wide sea of life, and the waves broke roughly as soon as the bar was
crossed. We were an ill-matched pair, my husband and I, from the very outset;
he, with very high ideas of a husband's authority and a wife's submission,
holding strongly to the "master-in-my-own-house theory," thinking much of the
details of home arrangements, precise, methodical, easily angered and with
difficulty appeased. I, accustomed to freedom, indifferent to home details,
impulsive, very hot-tempered, and proud as Lucifer. I had never had a harsh word
spoken to me, never been ordered to do anything, had had my way smoothed for my
feet, and never a worry had touched me. Harshness roused first incredulous
wonder, then a storm of indignant tears, and after a time a proud, defiant
resistance, cold and hard as iron. The easy-going, sunshiny, enthusiastic girl
changed—and changed pretty rapidly—into a grave, proud, reticent woman, burying
deep in her own heart all her hopes, her fears, and her disillusions. I must
have been a very unsatisfactory wife from the beginning, though I think other
treatment might gradually have turned me into a fair imitation of the proper
conventional article. Beginning with the ignorance before alluded to, and so
scared and outraged at heart from the very first; knowing nothing of household
management or economical use of money—I had never had an allowance or even
bought myself a pair of gloves—though eager to perform my new duties creditably;
unwilling to potter over little things, and liking to do swiftly what I had to
do, and then turn to my beloved books; at heart fretting for my mother but
rarely speaking of her, as I found my longing for her presence raised jealous
vexation; with strangers about me with whom I had no sympathy; visited by ladies
who talked to me only about babies and servants—troubles of which I knew nothing
and which bored me unutterably—and who were as uninterested in all that had
filled my life, in theology, in politics, in science, as I was uninterested in
the discussions on the housemaid's young man and on the cook's extravagance in
using "butter, when dripping would have done perfectly well, my dear"; was it
wonderful that I became timid, dull, and depressed?
74.
All my eager,
passionate enthusiasm, so attractive to men in a young girl, were doubtless
incompatible with "the solid comfort of a wife," and I must have been
inexpressibly tiring to the Rev. Frank Besant. And, in truth, I ought never to
have married, for under the soft, loving, pliable girl there lay hidden, as much
unknown to herself as to her surroundings, a woman of strong dominant will,
strength that panted for expression and rebelled against restraint, fiery and
passionate emotions that were seething under compression—a most undesirable
partner to sit in the lady's arm-chair on the domestic rug before the fire. [Que
le diable faisait-elle dans cette galère,] I have often thought, looking
back at my past self, and asking, Why did that foolish girl make her bed so
foolishly? But self-analysis shows the contradictories in my nature that led me
into so mistaken a course. I have ever been the queerest mixture of weakness and
strength, and have paid heavily for the weakness. As a child I used to suffer
tortures of shyness, and if my shoe-lace was untied would feel shamefacedly that
every eye was fixed on the unlucky string; as a girl I would shrink away from
strangers and think myself unwanted and unliked, so that I was full of eager
gratitude to any one who noticed me kindly; as the young mistress of a house, I
was afraid of my servants, and would let careless work pass rather than bear the
pain of reproving the ill-doer; when I have been lecturing and debating with no
lack of spirit on the platform, I have preferred to go without what I wanted at
the hotel rather than to ring and make the waiter fetch it; combative on the
platform in defence of any cause I cared for, I shrink from quarrel or
disapproval in the home, and am a coward at heart in private while a good
fighter in public. How often have I passed unhappy quarters of an hour screwing
up my courage to find fault with some subordinate whom my duty compelled me to
reprove, and how often have I jeered at myself for a fraud as the doughty
platform combatant, when shrinking from blaming some lad or lass for doing their
work badly! An unkind look or word has availed to make me shrink into myself as
a snail into its shell, while on the platform opposition makes me speak my best.
So I slid into marriage blindly and stupidly, fearing to give pain; fretted my
heart out for a year; then, roused by harshness and injustice, stiffened and
hardened, and lived with a wall of ice round me within which I waged mental
conflicts that nearly killed me; and learned at last how to live and work in
armour that turned the edge of the weapons that struck it, and left the flesh
beneath unwounded, armour laid aside, but in the presence of a very few.
75.
My first
serious attempts at writing were made in 1868, and I took up two very different
lines of composition; I wrote some short stories of a very flimsy type, and also
a work of a much more ambitious character, "The Lives of the Black Letter
Saints." For the sake of the unecclesiastically trained it may be as well to
mention that in the Calendar of the Church of England there are a number of
Saints' Days; some of these are printed in red, and are Red Letter Days, for
which services are appointed by the Church; others are printed in black, and are
Black Letter Days, and have no special services fixed for them. It seemed to me
that it would be interesting to take each of these days and write a sketch of
the life of the saint belonging to it, and accordingly I set to work to do so,
and gathered various books of history and legend where-from to collect my
"facts." I do not in the least know what became of that valuable book; I tried
Macmillans with it, and it was sent on by them to some one who was preparing a
series of Church books for the young; later I had a letter from a Church
brotherhood offering to publish it, if I would give it as "an act of piety" to
their order; its ultimate fate is to me unknown.
76.
The short
stories were more fortunate. I sent the first to the Family Herald, and
some weeks afterwards received a letter from which dropped a cheque as I opened
it. Dear me! I have earned a good deal of money since by my pen, but never any
that gave me the intense delight of that first thirty shillings. It was the
first money I had ever earned, and the pride of the earning was added to the
pride of authorship. In my childish delight and practical religion, I went down
on my knees and thanked God for sending it to me, and I saw myself earning heaps
of golden guineas, and becoming quite a support of the household. Besides, it
was "my very own," I thought, and a delightful sense of independence came over
me. I had not then realised the beauty of the English law, and the dignified
position in which it placed the married woman; I did not understand that all a
married woman earned by law belonged to her owner, and that she could have
nothing that belonged to her of right.[1]
I did not want the money: I was only so glad to have something of my own to
give, and it was rather a shock to learn that it was not really mine at all.
77.
From time to
time after that I earned a few pounds for stories in the same journal; and the
Family Herald, let me say, has one peculiarity which should render it
beloved by poor authors; it pays its contributor when it accepts the paper,
whether it prints it immediately or not; thus my first story was not printed for
some weeks after I received the cheque, and it was the same with all the others
accepted by the same journal. Encouraged by these small successes, I began
writing a novel! It took a long time to do, but was at last finished, and sent
off to the Family Herald. The poor thing came back, but with a kind note,
telling me that it was too political for their pages, but that if I would write
one of "purely domestic interest," and up to the same level, it would probably
be accepted. But by that time I was in the full struggle of theological doubt,
and that novel of "purely domestic interest" never got itself written.
78.
I contributed
further to the literature of my country a theological pamphlet, of which I
forget the exact title, but it dealt with the duty of fasting incumbent on all
faithful Christians, and was very patristic in its tone.
79.
In January,
1869, my little son was born, and as I was very ill for some months before, and
was far too much interested in the tiny creature afterwards, to devote myself to
pen and paper, my literary career was checked for a while. The baby gave a new
interest and a new pleasure to life, and as we could not afford a nurse I had
plenty to do in looking after his small majesty. My energy in reading became
less feverish when it was done by the side of the baby's cradle, and the little
one's presence almost healed the abiding pain of my mother's loss.
80.
81.
From a
photograph by Dighton's Art Studio, Cheltenham.
82.
ANNIE BESANT
1869.
83.
I may pass
very quickly over the next two years. In August, 1870, a little sister was born
to my son, and the recovery was slow and tedious, for my general health had been
failing for some time.
84.
The boy was a
bright, healthy little fellow, but the girl was delicate from birth, suffering
from her mother's unhappiness, and born somewhat prematurely in consequence of a
shock. When, in the spring of 1871, the two children caught the whooping cough,
my Mabel's delicacy made the ordeal well-nigh fatal to her. She was very young
for so trying a disease, and after a while bronchitis set in and was followed by
congestion of the lungs. For weeks she lay in hourly peril of death We arranged
a screen round the fire like a tent, and kept it full of steam to ease the
panting breath; and there I sat, day and night, all through those weary weeks,
the tortured baby on my knees. I loved my little ones passionately, for their
clinging love soothed the aching at my heart, and their baby eyes could not
critically scan the unhappiness that grew deeper month by month; and that
steam-filled tent became my world, and there, alone, I fought with Death for my
child. The doctor said that recovery was impossible, and that in one of the
paroxysms of coughing she must die; the most distressing thing was that, at
last, even a drop or two of milk would bring on the terrible convulsive choking,
and it seemed cruel to add to the pain of the apparently dying child. At length,
one morning the doctor said she could not last through the day; I had sent for
him hurriedly, for the body had suddenly swollen up as a result of the
perforation of one of the pleurae, and the consequent escape of air into the
cavity of the chest. While he was there one of the fits of coughing came on, and
it seemed as though it must be the last. He took a small bottle of chloroform
out of his pocket, and putting a drop on a handkerchief held it near the child's
face, till the drug soothed the convulsive struggle. "It can't do any harm at
this stage," he said, "and it checks the suffering." He went away, saying that
he feared he would never see the child alive again. One of the kindest friends I
had in my married life was that same doctor, Mr. Lauriston Winterbotham; he was
as good as he was clever, and, like so many of his noble profession, he had the
merits of discretion and silence. He never breathed a word as to my unhappiness,
until in 1878 he came up to town to give evidence as to cruelty which—had the
deed of separation not been held as condonation—would have secured me a divorce
a mensa et thoro.
85.
The child,
however, recovered, and her recovery was due, I think, to that chance thought of
Mr. Winterbotham's about the chloroform, for I used it whenever the first sign
of a fit of coughing appeared, and so warded off the convulsive attack and the
profound exhaustion that followed, in which a mere flicker of breath at the top
of the throat was the only sign of life, and sometimes even that disappeared,
and I thought her gone. For years the child remained ailing and delicate,
requiring the tenderest care, but those weeks of anguish left a deeper trace on
mother than on child. Once she was out of danger I collapsed physically, and lay
in bed for a week unmoving, and then rose to face a struggle which lasted for
three years and two months, and nearly cost me my life, the struggle which
transformed me from a Christian into an Atheist. The agony of the struggle was
in the first nineteen months—a time to be looked back upon with shrinking, as it
was a hell to live through at the time. For no one who has not felt it knows the
fearful anguish inflicted by doubt on the earnestly religious soul. There is in
life no other pain so horrible, so keen in its torture, so crushing in its
weight. It seems to shipwreck everything, to destroy the one steady gleam of
happiness "on the other side" that no earthly storm could obscure; to make all
life gloomy with a horror of despair, a darkness that verily may be felt.
Nothing but an imperious intellectual and moral necessity can drive into doubt a
religious mind, for it is as though an earthquake shook the foundations of the
soul, and the very being quivers and sways under the shock. No life in the empty
sky; no gleam in the blackness of the night; no voice to break the deadly
silence; no hand outstretched to save. Empty-brained triflers who have never
tried to think, who take their creed as they take their fashions, speak of
Atheism as the outcome of foul life and vicious desires. In their shallow
heartlessness and shallower thought they cannot even dimly imagine the anguish
of entering the mere penumbra of the Eclipse of Faith, much less the horror of
that great darkness in which the orphaned soul cries out into the infinite
emptiness: "Is it a Devil that has made the world? Is the echo, 'Children, ye
have no Father,' true? Is all blind chance, is all the clash of unconscious
forces, or are we the sentient toys of an Almighty Power that sports with our
agony, whose peals of awful mockery of laughter ring back answer to the wailings
of our despair?"
86.
How true are
the noble words of Mrs. Hamilton King:—
(1)
"For some may
follow Truth from dawn to dark,
As a child follows by his mother's hand,
Knowing no fear, rejoicing all the way;
And unto some her face is as a Star
Set through an avenue of thorns and fires,
And waving branches black without a leaf;
And still It draws them, though the feet must bleed,
Though garments must be rent, and eyes be scorched:
And if the valley of the shadow of death
Be passed, and to the level road they come,
Still with their faces to the polar star,
It is not with the same looks, the same limbs,
But halt, and maimed, and of infirmity.
And for the rest of the way they have to go
It is not day but night, and oftentimes
A night of clouds wherein the stars are lost."[2]
87.
Aye! but
never lost is the Star of Truth to which the face is set, and while that shines
all lesser lights may go. It was the long months of suffering through which I
had been passing, with the seemingly purposeless torturing of my little one as a
climax, that struck the first stunning blow at my belief in God as a merciful
Father of men. I had been visiting the poor a good deal, and had marked the
patient suffering of their lives; my idolised mother had been defrauded by a
lawyer she had trusted, and was plunged into debt by his non-payment of the sums
that should have passed through his hands to others; my own bright life had been
enshrouded by pain and rendered to me degraded by an intolerable sense of
bondage; and here was my helpless, sinless babe tortured for weeks and left
frail and suffering. The smooth brightness of my previous life made all the
disillusionment more startling, and the sudden plunge into conditions so new and
so unfavourable dazed and stunned me. My religious past became the worst enemy
of the suffering present. All my personal belief in Christ, all my intense faith
in His constant direction of affairs, all my habit of continual prayer and of
realisation of His Presence—all were against me now. The very height of my trust
was the measure of the shock when the trust gave way. To me He was no abstract
idea, but a living reality, and all my heart rose up against this Person in whom
I believed, and whose individual finger I saw in my baby's agony, my own misery,
the breaking of my mother's proud heart under a load of debt, and all the bitter
suffering of the poor. The presence of pain and evil in a world made by a good
God; the pain falling on the innocent, as on my seven months' old babe; the pain
begun here reaching on into eternity unhealed; a sorrow-laden world; a lurid,
hopeless hell; all these, while I still believed, drove me desperate, and
instead of like the devils believing and trembling, I believed and hated. All
the hitherto dormant and unsuspected strength of my nature rose up in rebellion;
I did not yet dream of denial, but I would no longer kneel.
88.
As the first
stirrings of this hot rebellion moved in my heart I met a clergyman of a very
noble type, who did much to help me by his ready and wise sympathy. Mr. Besant
brought him to see me during the crisis of the child's illness; he said little,
but on the following day I received from him the following note:—
89.
"April
21, 1871.
90.
"My Dear Mrs.
Besant,—I am painfully conscious that I gave you but little help in your trouble
yesterday. It is needless to say that it was not from want of sympathy. Perhaps
it would be nearer the truth to say that it was from excess of sympathy. I
shrink intensely from meddling with the sorrow of any one whom I feel to be of a
sensitive nature. 'The heart hath its own bitterness, and the stranger meddleth
not therewith.' It is to me a positively fearful thought that I might awaken
such a reflection as
(1)
"'And common
was the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.'
91.
Conventional
consolations, conventional verses out of the Bible, and conventional prayers
are, it seems to me, an intolerable aggravation of suffering. And so I acted on
a principle that I mentioned to your husband that 'there is no power so great as
that of one human faith looking upon another human faith.' The promises of God,
the love of Christ for little children, and all that has been given to us of
hope and comfort, are as deeply planted in your heart as in mine, and I did not
care to quote them. But when I talk face to face with one who is in sore need of
them, my faith in them suddenly becomes so vast and heart-stirring that I think
I must help most by talking naturally, and letting the faith find its own way
from soul to soul. Indeed, I could not find words for it if I tried. And yet I
am compelled, as a messenger of the glad tidings of God, to solemnly assure you
that all is well. We have no key to the 'mystery of pain' excepting the Cross of
Christ. But there is another and a deeper solution in the hands of our Father;
and it will be ours when we can understand it. There is—in the place to which we
travelsome blessed explanation of your baby's pain and your grief, which will
fill with light the darkest heart. Now you must believe without having seen;
that is true faith. You must
(1)
"'Reach a
hand through time to catch
The far-off interest of tears.'
92.
That you may
have strength so to do is part of your share in the prayers of
93.
"Yours very
faithfully,
94.
"W. D—."
95.
A noble
letter, but the storm was beating too fiercely to be stilled, and one night in
that summer of 1871 stands out clearly before me. Mr. Besant was away, and there
had been a fierce quarrel before he left. I was outraged, desperate, with no
door of escape from a life that, losing its hope in God, had not yet learned to
live for hope for man. No door of escape? The thought came like a flash: "There
is one!" And before me there swung open, with lure of peace and of safety, the
gateway into silence and security, the gateway of the tomb. I was standing by
the drawing-room window, staring hopelessly at the evening sky; with the thought
came the remembrance that the means was at hand—the chloroform that had soothed
my baby's pain, and that I had locked away upstairs. I ran up to my room, took
out the bottle, and carried it downstairs, standing again at the window in the
summer twilight, glad that the struggle was over and peace at hand. I uncorked
the bottle, and was raising it to my lips, when, as though the words were spoken
softly and clearly, I heard: "O coward, coward, who used to dream of martyrdom,
and cannot bear a few short years of pain!" A rush of shame swept over me, and I
flung the bottle far away among the shrubs in the garden at my feet, and for a
moment I felt strong as for a struggle, and then fell fainting on the floor.
Only once again in all the strifes of my career did the thought of suicide
recur, and then it was but for a moment, to be put aside as unworthy a strong
soul.
96.
My new
friend, Mr. D—, proved a very real help. The endless torture of hell, the
vicarious sacrifice of Christ, the trustworthiness of revelation, doubts on all
these hitherto accepted doctrines grew and heaped themselves on my bewildered
soul. My questionings were neither shirked nor discouraged by Mr. D—; he was not
horrified nor was he sanctimoniously rebukeful, but met them all with a wide
comprehension inexpressibly soothing to one writhing in the first agonies of
doubt. He left Cheltenham in the early autumn of 1871, but the following
extracts from a letter written in November will show the kind of net in which I
was struggling (I had been reading M'Leod Campbell's work "On the Atonement"):—
97.
"You forget
one great principle—that God is impassive, cannot suffer. Christ, quâ
God, did not suffer, but as Son of Man and in His humanity. Still, it may
be correctly stated that He felt to sin and sinners 'as God eternally feels'—i.e.,
abhorrence of sin, and love of the sinner. But to infer from that that the
Father in His Godhead feels the sufferings which Christ experienced solely in
humanity, and because incarnate is, I think, wrong.
98.
"(2) I felt
strongly inclined to blow you up for the last part of your letter. You assume, I
think quite gratuitously, that God condemns the major part of His children to
objectless future suffering. You say that if He does not, He places a book in
their hands which threatens what He does not mean to inflict. But how utterly
this seems to me opposed to the gospel of Christ! All Christ's references to
eternal punishment may be resolved into references to the Valley of Hinnom, by
way of imagery; with the exception of the Dives parable, where is distinctly
inferred a moral amendment beyond the grave. I speak of the unselfish desire of
Dives to save his brothers. The more I see of the controversy, the more baseless
does the eternal punishment theory appear. It seems then, to me, that instead of
feeling aggrieved and shaken, you ought to feel encouraged and thankful that God
is so much better than you were taught to believe Him. You will have discovered
by this time in Maurice's 'What is Revelation?' (I suppose you have the
'Sequel,' too?), that God's truth is our truth, and His love is our love, only
more perfect and full. There is no position more utterly defeated in modern
philosophy and theology than Dean Mansel's attempt to show that God's love,
justice, &c., are different in kind from ours. Mill and Maurice, from totally
alien points of view, have shown up the preposterous nature of the notion.
99.
"(3) A good
deal of what you have thought is, I fancy, based on a strange forgetfulness of
your former experience. If you have known Christ—(whom to know is eternal
life)—and that you have known Him I am certain—can you really say that a few
intellectual difficulties, nay, a few moral difficulties if you will, are able
at once to obliterate the testimony of that higher state of being?
100.
"Why, the
keynote of all my theology is that Christ is lovable because, and just
because, He is the perfection of all that I know to be noble and generous, and
loving, and tender, and true. If an angel from heaven brought me a gospel which
contained doctrines that would not stand the test of such perfect
lovableness—doctrines hard, or cruel, or unjust—I should reject him and his
trumpery gospel with scorn, knowing that neither could be Christ's. Know Christ
and judge religions by Him; don't judge Him by religions, and then complain
because they find yourself looking at Him through a blood-coloured glass."
101.
"I am
saturating myself with Maurice, who is the antidote given by God to this age
against all dreary doublings and temptings of the devil to despair."
102.
Many a one,
in this age of controversy over all things once held sacred, has found peace and
new light on this line of thought, and has succeeded in thus reconciling
theological doctrines with the demands of the conscience for love and justice in
a world made by a just and loving God. I could not do so. The awakening to what
the world was, to the facts of human misery, to the ruthless tramp of nature and
of events over the human heart, making no difference between innocent and
guilty—the shock had been too great for the equilibrium to be restored by
arguments that appealed to the emotions and left the intellect unconvinced.
Months of this long-drawn-out mental anguish wrought their natural effects on
physical health, and at last I broke down completely, and lay for weeks helpless
and prostrate, in raging and unceasing head-pain, unable to sleep, unable to
bear the light, lying like a log on the bed, not unconscious, but indifferent to
everything, consciousness centred, as it were, in the ceaseless pain. The doctor
tried every form of relief, but, entrenched in its citadel, the pain defied his
puny efforts. He covered my head with ice, he gave me opium—which only drove me
mad—he did all that skill and kindness could do, but all in vain. Finally the
pain wore itself out, and the moment he dared to do so, he tried mental
diversion; he brought me books on anatomy, on science, and persuaded me to study
them; and out of his busy life would steal an hour to explain to me knotty
points on physiology. He saw that if I were to be brought back to reasonable
life, it could only be by diverting thought from the channels in which the
current had been running to a dangerous extent. I have often felt that I owed
life and sanity to that good man, who felt for the helpless, bewildered
child-woman, beaten down by the cyclone of doubt and misery.
103.
So it will
easily be understood that my religious wretchedness only increased the
unhappiness of homelife, for how absurd it was that any reasonable human being
should be so tossed with anguish over intellectual and moral difficulties on
religious matters, and should make herself ill over these unsubstantial
troubles. Surely it was a woman's business to attend to her husband's comforts
and to see after her children, and not to break her heart over misery here and
hell hereafter, and distract her brain with questions that had puzzled the
greatest thinkers and still remained unsolved! And, truly, women or men who get
themselves concerned about the universe at large, would do well not to plunge
hastily into marriage, for they do not run smoothly in the double-harness of
that honourable estate. Sturm und Drang should be faced alone, and the
soul should go out alone into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, and not
bring his majesty and all his imps into the placid circle of the home. Unhappy
they who go into marriage with the glamour of youth upon them and the destiny of
conflict imprinted on their nature, for they make misery for their partner in
marriage as well as for themselves. And if that partner, strong in traditional
authority and conventional habits, seeks to "break in" the turbulent and
storm-tossed creature—well, it comes to a mere trial of strength and endurance,
whether that driven creature will fall panting and crushed, or whether it will
turn in its despair, assert its Divine right to intellectual liberty, rend its
fetters in pieces, and, discovering its own strength in its extremity, speak at
all risks its "No" when bidden to live a lie.
104.
When that
physical crisis was over I decided on my line of action. I resolved to take
Christianity as it had been taught in the Churches, and carefully and thoroughly
examine its dogmas one by one, so that I should never again say "I believe"
where I had not proved, and that, however diminished my area of belief, what was
left of it might at least be firm under my feet. I found that four chief
problems were pressing for solution, and to these I addressed myself. How many
are to-day the souls facing just these problems, and disputing every inch of
their old ground of faith with the steadily advancing waves of historical and
scientific criticism! Alas! for the many Canutes, as the waves wash over their
feet. These problems were:—
(1)
The eternity
of punishment after death.
(2)
The meaning
of "goodness" and "love," as applied to a God who had made this world, with all
its sin and misery.
(3)
The nature of
the atonement of Christ, and the "justice" of God in accepting a vicarious
suffering from Christ, and a vicarious righteousness from the sinner.
(4)
The meaning
of "inspiration" as applied to the Bible, and the reconciliation of the
perfections of the author with the blunders and immoralities of the work.
105.
It will be
seen that the deeper problems of religion—the deity of Christ, the existence of
God, the immortality of the soul—were not yet brought into question, and,
looking back, I cannot but see how orderly was the progression of thought, how
steady the growth, after that first terrible earthquake, and the first wild
swirl of agony. The points that I set myself to study were those which would
naturally be first faced by any one whose first rebellion against the dogmas of
the Churches was a rebellion of the moral nature rather than of the
intellectual, a protest of the conscience rather than of the brain. It was not a
desire for moral licence which gave me the impulse that finally landed me in
Atheism; it was the sense of outraged justice and insulted right. I was a wife
and mother, blameless in moral life, with a deep sense of duty and a proud
self-respect; it was while I was this that doubt struck me, and while I was in
the guarded circle of the home, with no dream of outside work or outside
liberty, that I lost all faith in Christianity. My education, my mother's
example, my inner timidity and self-distrust, all fenced me in from temptations
from without. It was the uprising of an outraged conscience that made me a rebel
against the Churches and finally an unbeliever in God. And I place this on
record, because the progress of Materialism will never be checked by diatribes
against unbelievers, as though they became unbelievers from desire for vice and
for licence to do evil. What Religion has to face in the controversies of to-day
is not the unbelief of the sty, but the unbelief of the educated conscience and
of the soaring intellect; and unless it can arm itself with a loftier ethic and
a grander philosophy than its opponent, it will lose its hold over the purest
and the strongest of the younger generation.
(1) CHAPTER V.
106.
THE STORM OF
DOUBT.
107.
My reading of
heretical and Broad Church works on one side, and of orthodox ones on the other,
now occupied a large part of my time, and our removal to Sibsey, in
Lincolnshire, an agricultural village with a scattered population, increased my
leisure. I read the works of Robertson, Stopford Brooke, Stanley, Greg, Matthew
Arnold, Liddon, Mansel, and many another, and my scepticism grew deeper and
deeper as I read. The Broad Church arguments appeared to me to be of the nature
of special pleading, skilful evasions of difficulties rather than the real
meeting and solving of them. For the problem was: Given a good God, how can He
have created mankind, knowing beforehand that the vast majority of those whom He
created were to be tortured for ever? Given a just God, how can He punish people
for being sinful, when they have inherited a sinful nature without their own
choice and of necessity? Given a righteous God, how can He allow sin to exist
for ever, so that evil shall be as eternal as good, and Satan shall reign in
hell as long as Christ in heaven? Worst of all puzzles, perhaps, was that of the
existence of evil and of misery, and the racking doubt whether God could
be good, and yet look on the evil and the misery of the world unmoved and
untouched. It seemed so impossible to believe that a Creator could be either
cruel enough to be indifferent to the misery, or weak enough to be unable to
stop it. The old dilemma faced me incessantly: "If He can prevent it and does
not, He is not good; if He wishes to prevent it and cannot, He is not almighty."
I racked my brains for an answer. I searched writings of believers for a clue,
but I found no way of escape. Not yet had any doubt of the existence of God
crossed my mind.
108.
Mr. D—
continued to write me, striving to guide me along the path which had led his own
soul to contentment, but I can only find room here for two brief extracts, which
will show how to himself he solved the problem. He thought me mistaken in my
view
109.
"Of the
nature of the sin and error which is supposed to grieve God. I
take it that sin is an absolutely necessary factor in the production of the
perfect man. It was foreseen and allowed as means to an end—as, in fact, an
education. The view of all the sin and misery in the world cannot grieve God any
more than it can grieve you to see Digby fail in his first attempt to build a
card-castle or a rabbit-hutch. All is part of the training. God looks at the
ideal man to which all tends.... "No, Mrs. Besant; I never feel at all inclined
to give up the search, or to suppose that the other side may be right. I claim
no merit for it, but I have an invincible faith in the morality of God and the
moral order of the world. I have no more doubt about the falsehood of the
popular theology than I have about the unreality of six robbers who attacked me
three nights ago in a horrid dream. I exult and rejoice in the grandeur and
freedom of the little bit of truth it has been given me to see. I am told that
'Present-day Papers,' by Bishop Ewing (edited), are a wonderful help, many of
them, to puzzled people; I mean to get them. But I am sure you will find that
the truth will (even so little as we may be able to find out) grow on you, make
you free, light your path, and dispel, at no distant time, your painful
difficulties and doubts. I should say on no account give up your reading. I
think with you that you could not do without it. It will be a wonderful source
of help and peace to you. For there are struggles far more fearful than those of
intellectual doubt. I am keenly alive to the gathered-up sadness of which your
last two pages are an expression. I was sorrier than I can say to read them.
They reminded me of a long and very dark time in my own life, when I thought the
light never would come. Thank God it came, or I think I could not have held out
much longer. But you have evidently strength to bear it now. The more dangerous
time, I should fancy, has passed. You will have to mind that the fermentation
leaves clear spiritual wine, and not (as too often) vinegar. I wish I could
write something more helpful to you in this great matter. But as I sit in front
of my large bay window and see the shadows on the grass and the sunlight on the
leaves, and the soft glimmer of the rosebuds left by the storms, I can but
believe that all will be very well. 'Trust in the Lord, wait patiently for
Him'—they are trite words. But He made the grass, the leaves, the rosebuds, and
the sunshine, and He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now the trite
words have swelled into a mighty argument."
110.
I found more
help in Theistic writers like Grey, and Agnostic like Arnold, than I did in the
Broad Church teachers, but these, of course, served to make return to the old
faith more and more impossible. The Church services were a weekly torture, but
feeling as I did that I was only a doubter, I kept my doubts to myself. It was
possible, I felt, that all my difficulties might be cleared up, and I had no
right to shake the faith of others while in uncertainty myself. Others had
doubted and had afterwards recovered their faith; for the doubter silence was a
duty; the blinded had better keep their misery to themselves.
111.
During these
weary months of anxiety and torment I found some relief from the mental strain
in practical parish work, nursing the sick, trying to brighten the lot of the
poor. I learned then some of the lessons as to the agricultural labourer and the
land that I was able in after-years to teach from the platform. The movement
among the agricultural labourers, due to the energy and devotion of Joseph Arch,
was beginning to be discussed in the fens, and my sympathies went strongly with
the claims of the labourers, for I knew their life-conditions. In one cottage I
had found four generations sleeping in one room—the great-grandfather and his
wife, the unmarried grandmother, the unmarried mother, the little child; three
men lodgers completed the tale of eight human beings crowded into that narrow,
ill-ventilated garret. Other cottages were hovels, through the broken roofs of
which poured the rain, and wherein rheumatism and ague lived with the human
dwellers. How could I do aught but sympathise with any combination that aimed at
the raising of these poor? But the Agricultural Labourers' Union was bitterly
opposed by the farmers, and they would give no work to a "Union man." One
example may serve for all. There was a young married man with two small
children, who was sinful enough to go to a Union meeting and sinful enough to
talk of it on his return home. No farmer would employ him in all the district
round. He tramped about vainly looking for work, grew reckless, and took to
drink. Visiting his cottage, consisting of one room and a "lean-to," I found his
wife ill with fever, a fever-stricken babe in her arms, the second child lying
dead on the bed. In answer to my soft-spoken questions: Yes, she was pining
(starving), there was no work. Why did she leave the dead child on the bed?
Because she had no other place for it till the coffin came. And at night the
unhappy, driven man, the fever-stricken wife, the fever-stricken child, the dead
child, all lay in the one bed. The farmers hated the Union because its success
meant higher wages for the men, and it never struck them that they might well
pay less rent to the absent landlord and higher wage to the men who tilled their
fields. They had only civil words for the burden that crushed them, hard words
for the mowers of their harvests and the builders-up of their ricks; they made
common cause with their enemies instead of with their friends, and instead of
leaguing themselves together with the labourers as forming together the true
agricultural interest, they leagued themselves with the landlords against the
labourers, and so made ruinous fratricidal strife instead of easy victory over
the common foe. And, seeing all this, I learned some useful lessons, and the
political education progressed while the theological strife went on within.
112.
In the early
autumn a ray of light broke the darkness. I was in London with my mother, and
wandered one Sunday morning into St. George's Hall, where the Rev. Charles
Voysey was preaching. There to my delight I found, on listening to the sermon
and buying some literature on sale in the ante-room, that there were people who
had passed through my own difficulties, and had given up the dogmas that I found
so revolting. I went again on the following Sunday, and when the service was
over I noticed that the outgoing stream of people were passing by Mr. and Mrs.
Voysey, and that many who were evidently strangers spoke a word of thanks to him
as they went on. Moved by a strong desire, after the long months of lonely
striving, to speak to one who had struggled out of Christian difficulties, I
said to Mr. Voysey, as I passed in my turn, "I must thank you for very great
help in what you said this morning," for in truth, never having yet doubted the
existence of God, the teaching of Mr. Voysey that He was "loving unto every
man, and His tender mercy over all
His works," came like a gleam of light across the stormy sea of doubt and
distress on which I had so long been tossing. The next Sunday saw me again at
the Hall, and Mrs. Voysey gave me a cordial invitation to visit them in their
Dulwich home. I found their Theism was free from the defects that had revolted
me in Christianity, and they opened up to me new views of religion. I read
Theodore Parker's "Discourse on Religion," Francis Newman's works, those of Miss
Frances Power Cobbe, and of others; the anguish of the tension relaxed; the
nightmare of an Almighty Evil passed away; my belief in God, not yet touched,
was cleared from all the dark spots that had sullied it, and I no longer doubted
whether the dogmas that had shocked my conscience were true or false. I shook
them off, once for all, with all their pain and horror and darkness, and felt,
with joy and relief inexpressible, that they were delusions of the ignorance of
man, not the revelations of a God.
113.
But there was
one belief that had not been definitely challenged, but of which the
rationale
was gone with the orthodox dogmas now definitely renounced—the doctrine of the
Deity of Christ. The whole teaching of the Broad Church school tends, of course,
to emphasise the humanity of Christ at the expense of His Deity, and when
eternal punishment and the substitutionary atonement had gone there seemed no
reason remaining sufficient to account for so tremendous a miracle as the
incarnation of the Deity. In the course of my reading I had become familiar with
the idea of Avatâras in Eastern creeds, and I saw that the incarnate God was put
forward as a fact by all ancient religions, and thus the way was paved for
challenging the especially Christian teaching, when the doctrines morally
repulsive were cleared away. But I shrank from the thought of placing in the
crucible a doctrine so dear from all the associations of the past; there was so
much that was soothing and ennobling in the idea of a union between Man and God,
between a perfect man and a Divine life, between a human heart and an almighty
strength. Jesus as God was interwoven with all art and all beauty in religion;
to break with the Deity of Jesus was to break with music, with painting, with
literature; the Divine Babe in His Mother's arms; the Divine Man in His Passion
and His Triumph; the Friend of Man encircled with the majesty of the Godhead.
Did inexorable Truth demand that this ideal Figure, with all its pathos, its
beauty, its human love, should pass away into the Pantheon of the dead Gods of
the Past?
114.
Nor was this
all. If I gave up belief in Christ as God, I must give up Christianity as creed.
Once challenge the unique position of the Christ, and the name Christian seemed
to me to be a hypocrisy, and its renouncement a duty binding on the upright
mind. I was a clergyman's wife; what would be the effect of such a step?
Hitherto mental pain alone had been the price demanded inexorably from the
searcher after truth; but with the renouncing of Christ outer warfare would be
added to the inner, and who might guess the result upon my life? The struggle
was keen but short; I decided to carefully review the evidence for and against
the Deity of Christ, with the result that that belief followed the others, and I
stood, no longer Christian, face to face with a dim future in which I sensed the
coming conflict.
115.
One effort I
made to escape it; I appealed to Dr. Pusey, thinking that if he could not answer
my questionings, no answer to them could be reasonably hoped for. I had a brief
correspondence with him, but was referred only to lines of argument familiar to
me—as those of Liddon in his "Bampton Lectures"—and finally, on his invitation,
went down to Oxford to see him. I found a short, stout gentleman, dressed in a
cassock, looking like a comfortable monk; but keen eyes, steadfastly gazing
straight into mine, told of the force and subtlety enshrined in the fine,
impressive head. But the learned doctor took the wrong line of treatment; he
probably saw I was anxious, shy, and nervous, and he treated me as a penitent
going to confession and seeking the advice of a director, instead of as an
inquirer struggling after truth, and resolute to obtain some firm
standing-ground in the sea of doubt. He would not deal with the question of the
Deity of Jesus as a question for argument. "You are speaking of your Judge," he
retorted sternly, when I pressed a difficulty. The mere suggestion of an
imperfection in the character of Jesus made him shudder, and he checked me with
raised hand. "You are blaspheming. The very thought is a terrible sin." Would he
recommend me any books that might throw light on the subject? "No, no; you have
read too much already. You must pray; you must pray." When I urged that I could
not believe without proof, I was told, "Blessed are they that have not seen and
yet have believed"; and my further questioning was checked by the murmur, "O my
child, how undisciplined! how impatient!" Truly, he must have found in me—hot,
eager, passionate in my determination to know, resolute not to profess
belief while belief was absent—nothing of the meek, chastened, submissive spirit
with which he was wont to deal in penitents seeking his counsel as their
spiritual guide. In vain did he bid me pray as though I believed; in vain did he
urge the duty of blind submission to the authority of the Church, of blind,
unreasoning faith that questioned not. I had not trodden the thorny path of
doubt to come to the point from which I had started; I needed, and would have,
solid grounds ere I believed. He had no conception of the struggles of a
sceptical spirit; he had evidently never felt the pangs of doubt; his own faith
was solid as a rock, firm, satisfied, unshakable; he would as soon have
committed suicide as have doubted of the infallibility of the "Universal
Church."
116.
"It is not
your duty to ascertain the truth," he told me, sternly. "It is your duty to
accept and believe the truth as laid down by the Church. At your peril you
reject it. The responsibility is not yours so long as you dutifully accept that
which the Church has laid down for your acceptance. Did not the Lord promise
that the presence of the Spirit should be ever with His Church, to guide her
into all truth?"
117.
"But the fact
of the promise and its value are just the very points on which I am doubtful," I
answered.
118.
He shuddered.
"Pray, pray," he said. "Father, forgive her, for she knows not what she says."
119.
It was in
vain that I urged on him the sincerity of my seeking, pointing out that I had
everything to gain by following his directions, everything to lose by going my
own way, but that it seemed to me untruthful to pretend to accept what was not
really believed.
120.
"Everything
to lose? Yes, indeed. You will be lost for time and lost for eternity."
121.
"Lost or
not," I rejoined, "I must and will try to find out what is true, and I will not
believe till I am sure."
122.
"You have no
right to make terms with God," he retorted, "as to what you will believe or what
you will not believe. You are full of intellectual pride."
123.
I sighed
hopelessly. Little feeling of pride was there in me just then, but only a
despairful feeling that in this rigid, unyielding dogmatism there was no
comprehension of my difficulties, no help for me in my strugglings. I rose, and,
thanking him for his courtesy, said that I would not waste his time further,
that I must go home and face the difficulties, openly leaving the Church and
taking the consequences. Then for the first time his serenity was ruffled.
124.
"I forbid you
to speak of your disbelief," he cried. "I forbid you to lead into your own lost
state the souls for whom Christ died."
125.
126.
THOMAS SCOTT
127.
Slowly and
sadly I took my way back to the station, knowing that my last chance of escape
had failed me. I recognised in this famous divine the spirit of priest-craft,
that could be tender and pitiful to the sinner, repentant, humble, submissive;
but that was iron to the doubter, the heretic, and would crush out all
questionings of "revealed truth," silencing by force, not by argument, all
challenge of the traditions of the Church. Out of such men were made the
Inquisitors of the Middle Ages, perfectly conscientious, perfectly rigid,
perfectly merciless to the heretic. To them heretics are centres of infectious
disease, and charity to the heretic is "the worst cruelty to the souls of men."
Certain that they hold, "by no merit of our own, but by the mercy of our God,
the one truth which He has revealed," they can permit no questionings, they can
accept nought but the most complete submission. But while man aspires after
truth, while his mind yearns after knowledge, while his intellect soars upward
into the empyrean of speculation and "beats the air with tireless wing," so long
shall those who demand faith from him be met by challenge for proof, and those
who would blind him shall be defeated by his resolve to gaze unblenching on the
face of Truth, even though her eyes should turn him into stone. It was during
this same autumn of 1872 that I first met Mr. and Mrs. Scott, introduced to them
by Mr. Voysey. At that time Thomas Scott was an old man, with beautiful white
hair, and eyes like those of a hawk gleaming from under shaggy eyebrows. He had
been a man of magnificent physique, and, though his frame was then enfeebled,
the splendid lion-like head kept its impressive strength and beauty, and told of
a unique personality. Well born and wealthy, he had spent his earlier life in
adventure in all parts of the world, and after his marriage he had settled down
at Ramsgate, and had made his home a centre of heretical thought. His wife, "his
right hand," as he justly called her, was young enough to be his daughter—a
sweet, strong, gentle, noble woman, worthy of her husband, and than that no
higher praise could be spoken. Mr. Scott for many years issued monthly a series
of pamphlets, all heretical, though very varying in their shades of thought; all
were well written, cultured, and polished in tone, and to this rule Mr. Scott
made no exception; his writers might say what they liked, but they must have
something to say, and must say it in good English. His correspondence was
enormous, from Prime Ministers downwards. At his house met people of the most
varied opinions; it was a veritable heretical salon. Colenso of Natal,
Edward Maitland, E. Vansittart Neale, Charles Bray, Sarah Hennell, and hundreds
more, clerics and laymen, scholars and thinkers, all coming to this one house,
to which the entrée was gained only by love of Truth and desire to spread
Freedom among men. For Thomas Scott my first Freethought essay was written a few
months after, "On the Deity of Jesus of Nazareth," by the wife of a benefited
clergyman. My name was not mine to use, so it was agreed that any essays from my
pen should be anonymous.
128.
And now came
the return to Sibsey, and with it the need for definite steps as to the Church.
For now I no longer doubted, I had rejected, and the time for silence was past.
I was willing to attend the Church services, taking no part in any not directed
to God Himself, but I could no longer attend the Holy Communion, for in that
service, full of recognition of Jesus as Deity and of His atoning sacrifice, I
could no longer take part without hypocrisy. This was agreed to, and well do I
remember the pain and trembling wherewith on the first "Sacrament Sunday" after
my return I rose and left the church. That the vicar's wife should "communicate"
was as much a matter of course as that the vicar should "administer"; I had
never done anything in public that would draw attention to me, and a feeling of
deadly sickness nearly overcame me as I made my exit, conscious that every eye
was on me, and that my non-participation would be the cause of unending comment.
As a matter of fact, every one naturally thought I was taken suddenly ill, and I
was overwhelmed with calls and inquiries. To any direct question I answered
quietly that I was unable to take part in the profession of faith required by an
honest communicant, but the statement was rarely necessary, as the idea of
heresy in a vicar's wife is slow to suggest itself to the ordinary bucolic mind,
and I proffered no information where no question was asked.
129.
It happened
that, shortly after that (to me) memorable Christmas of 1872, a sharp epidemic
of typhoid fever broke out in the village of Sibsey. The drainage there was of
the most primitive type, and the contagion spread rapidly. Naturally fond of
nursing, I found in this epidemic work just fitted to my hand, and I was
fortunate enough to be able to lend personal help that made me welcome in the
homes of the stricken poor. The mothers who slept exhausted while I watched
beside their darlings' bedsides will never, I like to fancy, think over-harshly
of the heretic whose hand was as tender and often more skilful than their own. I
think Mother Nature meant me for a nurse, for I take a sheer delight in nursing
any one, provided only that there is peril in the sickness, so that there is the
strange and solemn feeling of the struggle between the human skill one wields
and the supreme enemy, Death. There is a strange fascination in fighting Death,
step by step, and this is of course felt to the full where one fights for life
as life, and not for a life one loves. When the patient is beloved the struggle
is touched with agony, but where one fights with Death over the body of a
stranger there is a weird enchantment in the contest without personal pain, and
as one forces back the hated foe there is a curious triumph in the feeling which
marks the death-grip yielding up its prey, as one snatches back to earth the
life which had well-nigh perished.
130.
The spring of
1873 brought me knowledge of a power that was to mould much of my future life. I
delivered my first lecture, but delivered it to rows of empty pews in Sibsey
Church. A queer whim took me that I would like to know how "it felt" to preach,
and vague fancies stirred in me that I could speak if I had the chance. I saw no
platform in the distance, nor had any idea of possible speaking in the future
dawned upon me. But the longing to find outlet in words came upon me, and I felt
as though I had something to say and was able to say it. So locked alone in the
great, silent church, whither I had gone to practise some organ exercises, I
ascended the pulpit steps and delivered my first lecture on the Inspiration of
the Bible. I shall never forget the feeling of power and delight—but especially
of power—that came upon me as I sent my voice ringing down the aisles, and the
passion in me broke into balanced sentences and never paused for musical cadence
or for rhythmical expression. All I wanted then was to see the church full of
upturned faces, alive with throbbing sympathy, instead of the dreary emptiness
of silent pews. And as though in a dream the solitude was peopled, and I saw the
listening faces and the eager eyes, and as the sentences flowed unbidden from my
lips and my own tones echoed back to me from the pillars of the ancient church,
I knew of a verity that the gift of speech was mine, and that if ever—and then
it seemed so impossible!—if ever the chance came to me of public work, this
power of melodious utterance should at least win hearing for any message I had
to bring.
131.
But the
knowledge remained a secret all to my own self for many a long month, for I
quickly felt ashamed of that foolish speechifying in an empty church; but,
foolish as it was, I note it here, as it was the first effort of that expression
in spoken words which later became to me one of the deepest delights of life.
And, indeed, none can know, save they who have felt it, what joy there is in the
full rush of language that moves and sways; to feel a crowd respond to the
lightest touch; to see the faces brighten or darken at your bidding; to know
that the sources of human emotion and human passion gush forth at the word of
the speaker as the stream from the riven rock; to feel that the thought which
thrills through a thousand hearers has its impulse from you, and throbs back to
you the fuller from a thousand heart-beats. Is there any emotional joy in life
more brilliant than this, fuller of passionate triumph, and of the very essence
of intellectual delight?
132.
In 1873 my
marriage tie was broken. I took no new step, but my absence from the Communion
led to some gossip, and a relative of Mr. Besant pressed on him highly-coloured
views of the social and professional dangers which would accrue if my heresy
became known. My health, never really restored since the autumn of 1871, grew
worse and worse, serious heart trouble having arisen from the constant strain
under which I lived. At last, in July or August, 1873, the crisis came. I was
told that I must conform to the outward observances of the Church, and attend
the Communion; I refused. Then came the distinct alternative; conformity or
exclusion from home—in other words, hypocrisy or expulsion. I chose the latter.
133.
A bitterly
sad time followed. My dear mother was heart-broken. To her, with her wide and
vague form of Christianity, loosely held, the intensity of my feeling that where
I did not believe I would not pretend belief, was incomprehensible. She
recognised far more fully than I did all that a separation from my home meant
for me, and the difficulties that would surround a young woman, not yet
twenty-six, living alone. She knew how brutally the world judges, and how the
mere fact that a woman was young and alone justified any coarseness of slander.
Then I did not guess how cruel men and women could be, how venomous their
tongues; now, knowing it, having faced slander and lived it down, I deliberately
say that were the choice again before me I would choose as I chose then; I would
rather go through it all again than live "in Society" under the burden of an
acted lie.
134.
The hardest
struggle was against my mother's tears and pleading; to cause her pain was
tenfold pain to me. Against harshness I had been rigid as steel, but it was hard
to remain steadfast when my darling mother, whom I loved as I loved nothing else
on earth, threw herself on her knees before me, imploring me to yield. It seemed
like a crime to bring such anguish on her; and I felt as a murderer as the snowy
head was pressed against my knees. And yet—to live a lie? Not even for her was
that shame possible; in that worst crisis of blinding agony my will clung fast
to Truth. And it is true now as it ever was that he who loves father or mother
better than Truth is not worthy of her, and the flint-strewn path of honesty is
the way to Light and Peace.
135.
Then there
were the children, the two little ones who worshipped me, who was to them
mother, nurse, and playfellow. Were they, too, demanded at my hands? Not
wholly—for a time. Facts which I need not touch on here enabled my brother to
obtain for me a legal separation, and when everything was arranged, I found
myself guardian of my little daughter, and possessor of a small monthly income
sufficient for respectable starvation. With a great price I had obtained my
freedom, but—I was free. Home, friends, social position, were the price demanded
and paid, and, being free, I wondered what to do with my freedom. I could have
had a home with my brother if I would give up my heretical friends and keep
quiet, but I had no mind to put my limbs into fetters again, and in my youthful
inexperience I determined to find something to do. The difficulty was the
"something," and I spent various shillings in agencies, with a quite wonderful
unanimity of failures. I tried fancy needle-work, offered to "ladies in reduced
circumstances," and earned 4s. 6d. by some weeks of stitching. I experimented
with a Birmingham firm, who generously offered every one the opportunity of
adding to their incomes, and on sending the small fee demanded, received a
pencil-case, with an explanation that I was to sell little articles of that
description, going as far as cruet-stands, to my friends. I did not feel equal
to springing pencil-cases and cruet-stands on my acquaintances, so did not enter
on that line of business, and similar failures in numerous efforts made me feel,
as so many others have found, that the world-oyster is hard to open. However, I
was resolute to build a nest for my wee daughter, my mother, and myself, and the
first thing to do was to save my monthly pittance to buy furniture. I found a
tiny house in Colby Road, Upper Norwood, near the Scotts, who were more than
good to me, and arranged to take it in the spring, and then accepted a loving
invitation to Folkestone, where my grandmother and two aunts were living, to
look for work there. And found it. The vicar wanted a governess, and one of my
aunts suggested me as a stop-gap, and thither I went with my little Mabel, our
board and lodging being payment for my work. I became head cook, governess, and
nurse, glad enough to have found "something to do" that enabled me to save my
little income. But I do not think I will ever take to cooking for a permanence;
broiling and frying are all right, and making pie-crust is rather pleasant; but
saucepans and kettles blister your hands. There is a charm in making a stew, to
the unaccustomed cook, from the excitement of wondering what the result will be,
and whether any flavour save that of onions will survive the competition in the
mixture. On the whole, my cooking (strictly by cookery book) was a success, but
my sweeping was bad, for I lacked muscle. This curious episode came to an abrupt
end, for one of my little pupils fell ill with diphtheria, and I was transformed
from cook to nurse. Mabel I despatched to her grandmother, who adored her with a
love condescendingly returned by the little fairy of three, and never was there
a prettier picture than the red-gold curls nestled against the white, the
baby-grace in exquisite contrast with the worn stateliness of her tender nurse.
Scarcely was my little patient out of danger when the youngest boy fell ill of
scarlet fever; we decided to isolate him on the top floor, and I cleared away
carpets and curtains, hung sheets over the doorways and kept them wet with
chloride of lime, shut myself up there with the boy, having my meals left on the
landing; and when all risk was over, proudly handed back my charge, the disease
touching no one else in the house.
136.
And now the
spring of 1874 had come, and in a few weeks my mother and I were to set up house
together. How we had planned all, and had knitted on the new life together we
anticipated to the old one we remembered! How we had discussed Mabel's
education, and the share which should fall to each! Day-dreams; day-dreams!
never to be realised.
137.
My mother
went up to town, and in a week or two I received a telegram, saying she was
dangerously ill, and as fast as express train would take me I was beside her.
Dying, the doctor said; three days she might live—no more. I told her the
death-sentence, but she said resolutely, "I do not feel that I am going to die
just yet," and she was right. There was an attack of fearful prostration—the
valves of the heart had failed—a very wrestling with Death, and then the grim
shadow drew backwards. I nursed her day and night with a very desperation of
tenderness, for now Fate had touched the thing dearest to me in life. A second
horrible crisis came, and for the second time her tenacity and my love beat back
the death-stroke. She did not wish to die, the love of life was strong in her; I
would not let her die; between us we kept the foe at bay. Then dropsy
supervened, and the end loomed slowly sure.
138.
It was then,
after eighteen months' abstention, that I took the Sacrament for the last time.
My mother had an intense longing to communicate before she died, but absolutely
refused to do so unless I took it with her. "If it be necessary to salvation,"
she persisted, doggedly, "I will not take it if darling Annie is to be shut out.
I would rather be lost with her than saved without her." I went to a clergyman I
knew well, and laid the case before him; as I expected, he refused to allow me
to communicate. I tried a second, with the same result. At last a thought struck
me. There was Dean Stanley, my mother's favourite, a man known to be of the
broadest school within the Church of England; suppose I asked him? I did not
know him, and I felt the request would be an impertinence; but there was just
the chance that he might consent, and what would I not do to make my darling's
death-bed easier? I said nothing to any one, but set out to the Deanery,
Westminster, timidly asked for the Dean, and followed the servant upstairs with
a sinking heart. I was left for a moment alone in the library, and then the Dean
came in. I don't think I ever in my life felt more intensely uncomfortable than
I did in that minute's interval as he stood waiting for me to speak, his clear,
grave, piercing eyes gazing questioningly into mine. Very falteringly—it must
have been very clumsily—I preferred my request, stating boldly, with abrupt
honesty, that I was not a Christian, that my mother was dying, that she was
fretting to take the Sacrament, that she would not take it unless I took it with
her, that two clergymen had refused to allow me to take part in the service,
that I had come to him in despair, feeling how great was the intrusion, but—she
was dying.
139.
His face
changed to a great softness. "You were quite right to come to me," he answered,
in that low, musical voice of his, his keen gaze having altered into one no less
direct, but marvellously gentle. "Of course I will go and see your mother, and I
have little doubt that, if you will not mind talking over your position with me,
we may see our way clear to doing as your mother wishes."
140.
I could
barely speak my thanks, so much did the kindly sympathy move me; the revulsion
from the anxiety and fear of rebuff was strong enough to be almost pain. But
Dean Stanley did more than I asked. He suggested that he should call that
afternoon, and have a quiet chat with my mother, and then come again on the
following day to administer the Sacrament.
141.
"A stranger's
presence is always trying to a sick person," he said, with rare delicacy of
thought, "and, joined to the excitement of the service, it might be too much for
your dear mother. If I spend half an hour with her to-day, and administer the
Sacrament to-morrow, it will, I think, be better for her."
142.
So Dean
Stanley came that afternoon, all the way to Brompton, and remained talking with
my mother for about half an hour, and then set himself to understand my own
position. He finally told me that conduct was far more important than theory,
and that he regarded all as "Christians" who recognised and tried to follow the
moral law of Christ. On the question of the absolute Deity of Jesus he laid but
little stress; Jesus was "in a special sense the Son of God," but it was folly
to quarrel over words with only human meanings when dealing with the mystery of
the Divine existence, and, above all, it was folly to make such words into
dividing walls between earnest souls. The one important matter was the
recognition of "duty to God and man," and all who were one in that recognition
might rightfully join in an act of worship, the essence of which was not
acceptance of dogma, but love of God and self-sacrifice for man. "The Holy
Communion," he concluded, in his soft tones, "was never meant to divide from
each other hearts that are searching after the one true God. It was meant by its
founder as a symbol of unity, not of strife."
143.
On the
following day Dean Stanley celebrated the Holy Communion by the bedside of my
dear mother, and well was I repaid for the struggle it had cost me to ask so
great a kindness from a stranger, when I saw the comfort that gentle, noble
heart had given to her. He soothed away all her anxiety about my heresy with
tactful wisdom, bidding her have no fear of differences of opinion where the
heart was set on truth. "Remember," she told me he said to her—"remember that
our God is the God of truth, and that therefore the honest search for truth can
never be displeasing in His eyes." Once again after that he came, and after his
visit to my mother we had another long talk. I ventured to ask him, the
conversation having turned that way, how, with views so broad as his, he found
it possible to remain in communion with the Church of England. "I think," he
answered, gently, "that I am of more service to true religion by remaining in
the Church and striving to widen its boundaries from within, than if I left it
and worked from without." And he went on to explain how, as Dean of Westminster,
he was in a rarely independent position, and could make the Abbey of a wider
national service than would otherwise be possible. In all he said on this his
love for and his pride in the glorious Abbey were manifest, and it was easy to
see that old historical associations, love of music, of painting, of stately
architecture, were the bonds that held him bound to the "old historic Church of
England." His emotions, not his intellect, kept him Churchman, and he shrank,
with the over-sensitiveness of the cultured scholar, from the idea of allowing
the old traditions to be handled roughly by inartistic hands. Naturally of a
refined and delicate nature, he had been rendered yet more exquisitely sensitive
by the training of the college and the court; the polished courtesy of his
manners was but the natural expression of a noble and lofty mind—a mind whose
very gentleness sometimes veiled its strength. I have often heard Dean Stanley
harshly spoken of, I have heard his honesty roughly challenged; but never has he
been attacked in my presence that I have not uttered my protest against the
injustice done him, and thus striven to repay some small fraction of that great
debt of gratitude which I shall ever owe his memory.
144.
And now the
end came swiftly. I had hurriedly furnished a couple of rooms in the little
house, now ours, that I might take my mother into the purer air of Norwood, and
permission was given to drive her down in an invalid carriage. The following
evening she was suddenly taken worse; we lifted her into bed, and telegraphed
for the doctor. But he could do nothing, and she herself felt that the hand of
Death had gripped her. Selfless to the last, she thought but for my loneliness.
"I am leaving you alone," she sighed from time to time; and truly I felt, with
an anguish I did not dare to realise, that when she died I should indeed be
alone on earth.
145.
For two days
longer she was with me, my beloved, and I never left her side for five minutes.
On May 10th the weakness passed into gentle delirium, but even then the faithful
eyes followed me about the room, until at length they closed for ever, and as
the sun sank low in the heavens, the breath came slower and slower, till the
silence of Death came down upon us and she was gone.
146.
Stunned and
dazed with the loss, I went mechanically through the next few days. I would have
none touch my dead save myself and her favourite sister, who was with us at the
last. Cold and dry-eyed I remained, even when they hid her from me with the
coffin-lid, even all the dreary way to Kensal Green where her husband and her
baby-son were sleeping, and when we left her alone in the chill earth, damp with
the rains of spring. I could not believe that our day-dream was dead and buried,
and the home in ruins ere yet it was fairly built. Truly, my "house was left
unto me desolate," and the rooms, filled with sunshine but unlighted by her
presence, seemed to echo from their bare walls, "You are all alone."
147.
But my little
daughter was there, and her sweet face and dancing feet broke the solitude,
while her imperious claims for love and tendance forced me into attention to the
daily needs of life. And life was hard in those days of spring and summer,
resources small, and work difficult to find. In truth, the two months after my
mother's death were the dreariest my life has known, and they were months of
tolerably hard struggle. The little house in Colby Road taxed my slender
resources heavily, and the search for work was not yet successful. I do not know
how I should have managed but for the help ever at hand, of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas
Scott. During this time I wrote for Mr. Scott pamphlets on Inspiration,
Atonement, Mediation and Salvation, Eternal Torture, Religious Education of
Children, Natural v. Revealed Religion, and the few guineas thus earned
were very valuable. Their house, too, was always open to me, and this was no
small help, for often in those days the little money I had was enough to buy
food for two but not enough to buy it for three, and I would go out and study
all day at the British Museum, so as to "have my dinner in town," the said
dinner being conspicuous by its absence. If I was away for two evenings running
from the hospitable house in the terrace, Mrs. Scott would come down to see what
had happened, and many a time the supper there was of real physical value to me.
Well might I write, in 1879, when Thomas Scott lay dead: "It was Thomas Scott
whose house was open to me when my need was sorest, and he never knew, this
generous, noble heart, how sometimes, when I went in, weary and overdone, from a
long day's study in the British Museum, with scarce food to struggle through the
day—he never knew how his genial, 'Well, little lady,' in welcoming tone,
cheered the then utter loneliness of my life. To no living man—save one—do I owe
the debt of gratitude that I owe to Thomas Scott."
148.
The small
amount of jewellery I possessed, and all my superfluous clothes, were turned
into more necessary articles, and the child, at least, never suffered a solitary
touch of want. My servant Mary was a wonderful contriver, and kept house on the
very slenderest funds that could be put into a servant's hands, and she also
made the little place so bright and fresh-looking that it was always a pleasure
to go into it. Recalling those days of "hard living," I can now look on them
without regret. More, I am glad to have passed through them, for they have
taught me how to sympathise with those who are struggling as I struggled then,
and I never can hear the words fall from pale lips, "I am hungry," without
remembering how painful a thing hunger is, and without curing that pain, at
least for the moment.
149.
The presence
of the child was good for me, keeping alive my aching, lonely heart: she would
play contentedly for hours while I was working, a word now and again being
enough for happiness; when I had to go out without her, she would run to the
door with me, and the "good-bye" would come from down-curved lips; she was ever
watching at the window for my return, and the sunny face was always the first to
welcome me home. Many and many a time have I been coming home, weary, hungry,
and heart-sick, and the glimpse of the little face watching has reminded me that
I must not carry in a grave face to sadden my darling, and the effort to throw
off the depression for her sake threw it off altogether, and brought back the
sunshine. She was the sweetness and joy of my life, my curly-headed darling,
with her red-gold hair and glorious eyes, and passionate, wilful, loving nature.
The torn, bruised tendrils of my heart gradually twined round this little life;
she gave something to love and to tend, and thus gratified one of the strongest
impulses of my nature.
(1) CHAPTER VI.
CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
150.
During all
these months the intellectual life had not stood still; I was slowly, cautiously
feeling my way onward. And in the intellectual and social side of my life I
found a delight unknown in the old days of bondage. First, there was the joy of
freedom, the joy of speaking out frankly and honestly each thought. Truly, I had
a right to say: "With a great price obtained I this freedom," and having paid
the price, I revelled in the liberty I had bought. Mr. Scott's valuable library
was at my service; his keen brain challenged my opinions, probed my assertions,
and suggested phases of thought hitherto untouched. I studied harder than ever,
and the study now was unchecked by any fear of possible consequences. I had
nothing left of the old faith save belief in "a God," and that began slowly to
melt away. The Theistic axiom: "If there be a God at all He must be at least as
good as His highest creature," began with an "if," and to that "if" I turned my
attention. "Of all impossible things," writes Miss Frances Power Cobbe, "the
most impossible must surely be that a man should dream something of the good and
the noble, and that it should prove at last that his Creator was less good and
less noble than he had dreamed." But, I questioned, are we sure that there is a
Creator? Granted that, if there is, He must be above His highest creature,
but—is there such a being? "The ground," says the Rev. Charles Voysey, "on which
our belief in God rests is man. Man, parent of Bibles and Churches, inspirer of
all good thoughts and good deeds. Man, the masterpiece of God's thought on
earth. Man, the text-book of all spiritual knowledge. Neither miraculous nor
infallible, man is nevertheless the only trustworthy record of the Divine mind
in things pertaining to God. Man's reason, conscience, and affections are the
only true revelation of his Maker." But what if God were only man's own image
reflected in the mirror of man's mind? What if man were the creator, not the
revelation of his God?
151.
It was
inevitable that such thoughts should arise after the more palpably indefensible
doctrines of Christianity had been discarded. Once encourage the human mind to
think, and bounds to the thinking can never again be set by authority. Once
challenge traditional beliefs, and the challenge will ring on every shield which
is hanging in the intellectual arena. Around me was the atmosphere of conflict,
and, freed from its long repression, my mind leapt up to share in the strife
with a joy in the intellectual tumult, the intellectual strain.
152.
I often
attended South Place Chapel, where Moncure D. Conway was then preaching, and
discussion with him did something towards widening my views on the deeper
religious problems; I re-read Dean Mansel's "Bampton Lectures," and they did
much towards turning me in the direction of Atheism; I re-read Mill's
"Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," and studied carefully
Comte's "Philosophie Positive." Gradually I recognised the limitations of human
intelligence and its incapacity for understanding the nature of God, presented
as infinite and absolute; I had given up the use of prayer as a blasphemous
absurdity, since an all-wise God could not need my suggestions, nor an all-good
God require my promptings. But God fades out of the daily life of those who
never pray; a personal God who is not a Providence is a superfluity; when from
the heaven does not smile a listening Father, it soon becomes an empty space,
whence resounds no echo of man's cry. I could then reach no loftier conception
of the Divine than that offered by the orthodox, and that broke hopelessly away
as I analysed it.
153.
At last I
said to Mr. Scott, "Mr. Scott, may I write a tract on the nature and existence
of God?"
154.
He glanced at
me keenly. "Ah, little lady, you are facing, then, that problem at last? I
thought it must come. Write away."
155.
While this
pamphlet was in MS. an event occurred which coloured all my succeeding life. I
met Charles Bradlaugh. One day in the late spring, talking with Mrs. Conway—one
of the sweetest and steadiest natures whom it has been my lot to meet, and to
whom, as to her husband, I owe much for kindness generously shown when I was
poor and had but few friends—she asked me if I had been to the Hall of Science,
Old Street. I answered, with the stupid, ignorant reflection of other people's
prejudices so sadly common, "No, I have never been there. Mr. Bradlaugh is
rather a rough sort of speaker, is he not?"
156.
"He is the
finest speaker of Saxon-English that I have ever heard," she answered, "except,
perhaps, John Bright, and his power over a crowd is something marvellous.
Whether you agree with him or not, you should hear him."
157.
158.
CHARLES
BRADLAUGH M.P.
159.
In the
following July I went into the shop of Mr. Edward Truelove, 256, High Holborn,
in search of some Comtist publications, having come across his name as a
publisher in the course of my study at the British Museum. On the counter was a
copy of the National Reformer, and, attracted by the title, I bought it.
I read it placidly in the omnibus on my way to Victoria Station, and found it
excellent, and was sent into convulsions of inward merriment when, glancing up,
I saw an old gentleman gazing at me, with horror speaking from every line of his
countenance. To see a young woman, respectably dressed in crape, reading an
Atheistic journal, had evidently upset his peace of mind, and he looked so hard
at the paper that I was tempted to offer it to him, but repressed the
mischievous inclination.
160.
This first
copy of the paper with which I was to be so closely connected bore date July 19,
1874, and contained two long letters from a Mr. Arnold of Northampton, attacking
Mr. Bradlaugh, and a brief and singularly self-restrained answer from the
latter. There was also an article on the National Secular Society, which made me
aware that there was an organisation devoted to the propagandism of Free
Thought. I felt that if such a society existed, I ought to belong to it, and I
consequently wrote a short note to the editor of the National Reformer,
asking whether it was necessary for a person to profess Atheism before being
admitted to the Society. The answer appeared in the National Reformer:—
161.
"S.E.—To be a
member of the National Secular Society it is only necessary to be able honestly
to accept the four principles, as given in the National Reformer
of June 14th. This any person may do without being required to avow himself an
Atheist. Candidly, we can see no logical resting-place between the entire
acceptance of authority, as in the Roman Catholic Church, and the most extreme
Rationalism. If, on again looking to the Principles of the Society, you can
accept them, we repeat to you our invitation."
162.
I sent my
name in as an active member, and find it is recorded in the National Reformer
of August 9th. Having received an intimation that Londoners could receive their
certificates at the Hall of Science from Mr. Bradlaugh on any Sunday evening, I
betook myself thither, and it was on August 2, 1874, that I first set foot in a
Freethought hall. The Hall was crowded to suffocation, and, at the very moment
announced for the lecture, a roar of cheering burst forth, a tall figure passed
swiftly up the Hall to the platform, and, with a slight bow in answer to the
voluminous greeting, Charles Bradlaugh took his seat. I looked at him with
interest, impressed and surprised. The grave, quiet, stern, strong face, the
massive head, the keen eyes, the magnificent breadth and height of forehead—was
this the man I had heard described as a blatant agitator, an ignorant demagogue?
163.
He began
quietly and simply, tracing out the resemblances between the Krishna and the
Christ myths, and as he went from point to point his voice grew in force and
resonance, till it rang round the hall like a trumpet. Familiar with the
subject, I could test the value of his treatment of it, and saw that his
knowledge was as sound as his language was splendid. Eloquence, fire, sarcasm,
pathos, passion, all in turn were bent against Christian superstition, till the
great audience, carried away by the torrent of the orator's force, hung silent,
breathing soft, as he went on, till the silence that followed a magnificent
peroration broke the spell, and a hurricane of cheers relieved the tension.
164.
He came down
the Hall with some certificates in his hand, glanced round, and handed me mine
with a questioning "Mrs. Besant?" Then he said, referring to my question as to a
profession of Atheism, that he would willingly talk over the subject of Atheism
with me if I would make an appointment, and offered me a book he had been using
in his lecture. Long afterwards I asked him how he knew me, whom he had never
seen, that he came straight to me in such fashion. He laughed and said he did
not know, but, glancing over the faces, he felt sure that I was Annie Besant.
165.
From that
first meeting in the Hall of Science dated a friendship that lasted unbroken
till Death severed the earthly bond, and that to me stretches through Death's
gateway and links us together still. As friends, not as strangers, we met—swift
recognition, as it were, leaping from eye to eye; and I know now that the
instinctive friendliness was in very truth an outgrowth of strong friendship in
other lives, and that on that August day we took up again an ancient tie, we did
not begin a new one. And so in lives to come we shall meet again, and help each
other as we helped each other in this. And let me here place on record, as I
have done before, some word of what I owe him for his true friendship; though,
indeed, how great is my debt to him I can never tell. Some of his wise phrases
have ever remained in my memory. "You should never say you have an opinion on a
subject until you have tried to study the strongest things said against the view
to which you are inclined." "You must not think you know a subject until you are
acquainted with all that the best minds have said about it." "No steady work can
be done in public unless the worker study at home far more than he talks
outside." "Be your own harshest judge, listen to your own speech and criticise
it; read abuse of yourself and see what grains of truth are in it." "Do not
waste time by reading opinions that are mere echoes of your own; read opinions
you disagree with, and you will catch aspects of truth you do not readily see."
Through our long comradeship he was my sternest as well as gentlest critic,
pointing out to me that in a party like ours, where our own education and
knowledge were above those whom we led, it was very easy to gain indiscriminate
praise and unstinted admiration; on the other hand, we received from Christians
equally indiscriminate abuse and hatred. It was, therefore, needful that we
should be our own harshest judges, and that we should be sure that we knew
thoroughly every subject that we taught. He saved me from the superficiality
that my "fatal facility" of speech might so easily have induced; and when I
began to taste the intoxication of easily won applause, his criticism of weak
points, his challenge of weak arguments, his trained judgment, were of priceless
service to me, and what of value there is in my work is very largely due to his
influence, which at once stimulated and restrained.
166.
One very
charming characteristic of his was his extreme courtesy in private life,
especially to women. This outward polish, which sat so gracefully on his massive
frame and stately presence, was foreign rather than English—for the English, as
a rule, save such as go to Court, are a singularly unpolished people—and it gave
his manner a peculiar charm. I asked him once where he had learned his gracious
fashions that were so un-English—he would stand with uplifted hat as he asked a
question of a maidservant, or handed a woman into a carriage—and he answered,
with a half-smile, half-scoff, that it was only in England he was an outcast
from society. In France, in Spain, in Italy, he was always welcomed among men
and women of the highest social rank, and he supposed that he had unconsciously
caught the foreign tricks of manner. Moreover, he was absolutely indifferent to
all questions of social position; peer or artisan, it was to him exactly the
same; he never seemed conscious of the distinctions of which men make so much.
167.
Our first
conversation, after the meeting at the Hall of Science, took place a day or two
later in his little study in 29, Turner Street, Commercial Road, a wee room
overflowing with books, in which he looked singularly out of place. Later I
learned that he had failed in business in consequence of Christian persecution,
and, resolute to avoid bankruptcy, he had sold everything he possessed, save his
books, had sent his wife and daughters to live in the country with his
father-in-law, had taken two tiny rooms in Turner Street, where he could live
for a mere trifle, and had bent himself to the task of paying off the
liabilities he had incurred—incurred in consequence of his battling for
political and religious liberty. I took with me my MS. essay "On the Nature and
Existence of God," and it served as the basis for our conversation; we found
there was little difference in our views. "You have thought yourself into
Atheism without knowing it," he said, and all that I changed in the essay was
the correction of the vulgar error that the Atheist says "there is no God," by
the insertion of a passage disclaiming this position from an essay pointed out
to me by Mr. Bradlaugh. And at this stage of my life-story, it is necessary to
put very clearly the position I took up and held so many years as Atheist,
because otherwise the further evolution into Theosophist will be wholly
incomprehensible. It will lead me into metaphysics, and to some readers these
are dry, but if any one would understand the evolution of a Soul he must be
willing to face the questions which the Soul faces in its growth. And the
position of the philosophic Atheist is so misunderstood that it is the more
necessary to put it plainly, and Theosophists, at least, in reading it, will see
how Theosophy stepped in finally as a further evolution towards knowledge,
rendering rational, and therefore acceptable, the loftiest spirituality that the
human mind can as yet conceive.
168.
In order that
I may not colour my past thinkings by my present thought, I take my statements
from pamphlets written when I adopted the Atheistic philosophy and while I
continued an adherent thereof. No charge can then be made that I have softened
my old opinions for the sake of reconciling them with those now held.
(1) CHAPTER VII.
169.
ATHEISM AS I
KNEW AND TAUGHT IT.
170.
The first
step which leaves behind the idea of a limited and personal God, an extra-cosmic
Creator, and leads the student to the point whence Atheism and Pantheism
diverge, is the recognition that a profound unity of substance underlies the
infinite diversities of natural phenomena, the discernment of the One beneath
the Many. This was the step I had taken ere my first meeting with Charles
Bradlaugh, and I had written:—
171.
"It is
manifest to all who will take the trouble to think steadily, that there can be
only one eternal and underived substance, and that matter and spirit must,
therefore, only be varying manifestations of this one substance. The distinction
made between matter and spirit is, then, simply made for the sake of convenience
and clearness, just as we may distinguish perception from judgment, both of
which, however, are alike processes of thought. Matter is, in its constituent
elements, the same as spirit; existence is one, however manifold in its
phenomena; life is one, however multiform in its evolution. As the heat of the
coal differs from the coal itself, so do memory, perception, judgment, emotion,
and will differ from the brain which is the instrument of thought. But
nevertheless they are all equally products of the one sole substance, varying
only in their conditions.... I find myself, then, compelled to believe that one
only substance exists in all around me; that the universe is eternal, or at
least eternal so far as our faculties are concerned, since we cannot, as some
one has quaintly put it, 'get to the outside of everywhere'; that a Deity cannot
be conceived of as apart from the universe; that the Worker and the Work are
inextricably interwoven, and in some sense eternally and indissolubly combined.
Having got so far, we will proceed to examine into the possibility of proving
the existence of that one essence popularly called by the name of God,
under the conditions strictly defined by the orthodox. Having demonstrated, as I
hope to do, that the orthodox idea of God is unreasonable and absurd, we will
endeavour to ascertain whether any idea of God, worthy to be called an
idea, is attainable in the present state of our faculties." "The Deity must of
necessity be that one and only substance out of which all things are evolved,
under the uncreated conditions and eternal laws of the universe; He must be, as
Theodore Parker somewhat oddly puts it, 'the materiality of matter as well as
the spirituality of spirit'—i.e., these must both be products of this one
substance; a truth which is readily accepted as soon as spirit and matter are
seen to be but different modes of one essence. Thus we identify substance with
the all-comprehending and vivifying force of nature, and in so doing we simply
reduce to a physical impossibility the existence of the Being described by the
orthodox as a God possessing the attributes of personality. The Deity becomes
identified with nature, co-extensive with the universe, but the God of
the orthodox no longer exists; we may change the signification of God, and use
the word to express a different idea, but we can no longer mean by it a Personal
Being in the orthodox sense, possessing an individuality which divides Him from
the rest of the universe."[3]
172.
Proceeding to
search whether any idea of God was attainable, I came to the conclusion
that evidence of the existence of a conscious Power was lacking, and that the
ordinary proofs offered were inconclusive; that we could grasp phenomena and no
more. "There appears, also, to be a possibility of a mind in nature, though we
have seen that intelligence is, strictly speaking, impossible. There cannot be
perception, memory, comparison, or judgment, but may there not be a perfect
mind, unchanging, calm, and still? Our faculties fail us when we try to estimate
the Deity, and we are betrayed into contradictions and absurdities; but does it
therefore follow that He is
not? It seems to me that to deny His existence is to overstep the boundaries of
our thought-power almost as much as to try and define it. We pretend to know the
Unknown if we declare Him to be the Unknowable. Unknowable to us at present,
yes! Unknowable for ever, in other possible stages of existence? We have reached
a region into which we cannot penetrate; here all human faculties fail us; we
bow our heads on 'the threshold of the unknown.'
(1)
"'And the ear
of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see,
But if we could see and hear, this vision—were it not He?'
173.
Thus sings
Alfred Tennyson, the poet of metaphysics: 'if we could see and hear.'
Alas! it is always an 'if!'[4]
174.
This refusal
to believe without evidence, and the declaration that anything "behind
phenomena" is unknowable to man as at present constituted—these are the two
chief planks of the Atheistic platform, as Atheism was held by Charles Bradlaugh
and myself. In 1876 this position was clearly reaffirmed. "It is necessary to
put briefly the Atheistic position, for no position is more continuously and
more persistently misrepresented. Atheism is without God. It does not
assert no
God. 'The Atheist does not say "There is no God," but he says, "I know not what
you mean by God; I am without idea of God; the word God is to me a sound
conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot
deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which, by its
affirmer, is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to me."' (Charles
Bradlaugh, "Freethinker's Text-book," p. 118.) The Atheist neither affirms nor
denies the possibility of phenomena differing from those recognised by human
experience.... As his knowledge of the universe is extremely limited and very
imperfect, the Atheist declines either to deny or to affirm anything with regard
to modes of existence of which he knows nothing. Further, he refuses to believe
anything concerning that of which he knows nothing, and affirms that that which
can never be the subject of knowledge ought never to be the object of belief.
While the Atheist, then, neither affirms nor denies the unknown, he does
deny all which conflicts with the knowledge to which he has already attained.
For example, he knows
that one is one, and that three times one are three; he denies that three
times one are, or can be, one. The position of the Atheist is a clear and a
reasonable one: I know nothing about 'God,' and therefore I do not believe in
Him or in it; what you tell me about your God is self-contradictory, and is
therefore incredible. I do not deny 'God,' which is an unknown tongue to me; I
do deny your God, who is an impossibility. I am without God."[5]
Up to 1887 I find myself writing on the same lines: "No man can rationally
affirm 'There is no God,' until the word 'God' has for him a definite meaning,
and until everything that exists is known to him, and known with what Leibnitz
calls 'perfect knowledge.' The Atheist's denial of the Gods begins only when
these Gods are defined or described. Never yet has a God been defined in terms
which were not palpably self-contradictory and absurd; never yet has a God been
described so that a concept of Him was made possible to human thought—Nor is
anything gained by the assertors of Deity when they allege that He is
incomprehensible. If 'God' exists and is incomprehensible, His
incomprehensibility is an admirable reason for being silent about Him, but can
never justify the affirmation of self-contradictory propositions, and the
threatening of people with damnation if they do not accept them."[6] "The belief of the Atheist stops where his
evidence stops. He believes in the existence of the universe, judging the
accessible proof thereof to be adequate, and he finds in this universe
sufficient cause for the happening of all phenomena. He finds no intellectual
satisfaction in placing a gigantic conundrum behind the universe, which only
adds its own unintelligibility to the already sufficiently difficult problem of
existence. Our lungs are not fitted to breathe beyond the atmosphere which
surrounds our globe, and our faculties cannot breathe outside the atmosphere of
the phenomenal."[7] And I summed up this essay
with the words: "I do not believe in God. My mind finds no grounds on which to
build up a reasonable faith. My heart revolts against the spectre of an Almighty
Indifference to the pain of sentient beings. My conscience rebels against the
injustice, the cruelty, the inequality, which surround me on every side. But I
believe in Man. In man's redeeming power; in man's
remoulding energy; in man's approaching triumph, through knowledge, love, and
work."[8]
175.
These views
of existence naturally colour all views of life and of the existence of the
Soul. And here steps in the profound difference between Atheism and Pantheism;
both posit an Existence at present inscrutable by human faculties, of which all
phenomena are modes; but to the Atheist that Existence manifests as
Force-Matter, unconscious, unintelligent, while to the Pantheist it manifests as
Life-Matter, conscious, intelligent. To the one, life and consciousness are
attributes, properties, dependent upon arrangements of matter; to the other they
are fundamental, essential, and only limited in their manifestation by
arrangements of matter. Despite the attraction held for me in Spinoza's luminous
arguments, the over-mastering sway which Science was beginning to exercise over
me drove me to seek for the explanation of all problems of life and mind at the
hands of the biologist and the chemist. They had done so much, explained so
much, could they not explain all? Surely, I thought, the one safe ground is that
of experiment, and the remembered agony of doubt made me very slow to believe
where I could not prove. So I was fain to regard life as an attribute, and this
again strengthened the Atheistic position. "Scientifically regarded, life is not
an entity but a property; it is not a mode of existence, but a characteristic of
certain modes. Life is the result of an arrangement of matter, and when
rearrangement occurs the former result can no longer be present; we call the
result of the changed arrangement death. Life and death are two convenient words
for expressing the general outcome of two arrangements of matter, one of which
is always found to precede the other."[9] And
then, having resorted to chemistry for one illustration, I took another from one
of those striking and easily grasped analogies, facility for seeing and
presenting which has ever been one of the secrets of my success as a
propagandist. Like pictures, they impress the mind of the hearer with a vivid
sense of reality. "Every one knows the exquisite iridiscence of mother-of-pearl,
the tender, delicate hues which melt into each other, glowing with soft
radiance. How different is the dull, dead surface of a piece of wax. Yet take
that dull, black wax and mould it so closely to the surface of the
mother-of-pearl that it shall take every delicate marking of the shell, and when
you raise it the seven-hued glory shall smile at you from the erstwhile
colourless surface. For, though it be to the naked eye imperceptible, all the
surface of the mother-of-pearl is in delicate ridges and furrows, like the
surface of a newly-ploughed field; and when the waves of light come dashing up
against the ridged surface, they are broken like the waves on a shingly shore,
and are flung backwards, so that they cross each other and the oncoming waves;
and, as every ray of white light is made up of waves of seven colours, and these
waves differ in length each from the others, the fairy ridges fling them
backward separately, and each ray reaches the eye by itself; so that the colour
of the mother-of-pearl is really the spray of the light waves, and comes from
arrangement of matter once again. Give the dull, black wax the same ridges and
furrows, and its glory shall differ in nothing from that of the shell. To apply
our illustration: as the colour belongs to one arrangement of matter and the
dead surface to another, so life belongs to some arrangements of matter and is
their resultant, while the resultant of other arrangements is death."[10]
176.
The same line
of reasoning naturally was applied to the existence of "spirit" in man, and it
was argued that mental activity, the domain of the "spirit," was dependent on
bodily organisation. "When the babe is born it shows no sign of mind. For a
brief space hunger and repletion, cold and warmth are its only sensations.
Slowly the specialised senses begin to function; still more slowly muscular
movements, at first aimless and reflex, become co-ordinated and consciously
directed. There is no sign here of an intelligent spirit controlling a
mechanism; there is every sign of a learning and developing intelligence,
developing pari passu with the organism of which it is a function. As the
body grows, the mind grows with it, and the childish mind of the child develops
into the hasty, quickly-judging, half-informed, unbalanced youthful mind of the
youth; with maturity of years comes maturity of mind, and body and mind are
vigorous and in their prime. As old age comes on and the bodily functions decay,
the mind decays also, until age passes into senility, and body and mind sink
into second childhood. Has the immortal spirit decayed with the organisation, or
is it dwelling in sorrow, bound in its 'house of clay'? If this be so, the
'spirit' must be unconscious, or else separate from the very individual whose
essence it is supposed to be, for the old man does not suffer when his mind is
senile, but is contented as a little child. And not only is this constant,
simultaneous growth and decay of body and mind to be observed, but we know that
mental functions are disordered and suspended by various physical conditions.
Alcohol, many drugs, fever, disorder the mind; a blow on the cranium suspends
its functions, and the 'spirit' returns with the surgeon's trepanning. Does the
'spirit' take part in dreams? Is it absent from the idiot, from the lunatic? Is
it guilty of manslaughter when the madman murders, or does it helplessly watch
its own instrument performing actions at which it shudders? If it can only work
here through an organism, is its nature changed in its independent life, severed
from all with which it was identified? Can it, in its 'disembodied state,' have
anything in common with its past?"[11]
177.
It will be
seen that my unbelief in the existence of the Soul or Spirit was a matter of
cold, calm reasoning. As I wrote in 1885: "For many of us evidence must precede
belief. I would gladly believe in a happy immortality for all, as I would gladly
believe that all misery and crime and poverty will disappear in 1885—if I
could. But I am unable to believe an improbable proposition unless
convincing evidence is brought in support of it. Immortality is most improbable;
no evidence is brought forward in its favour. I cannot believe only because I
wish."[12]
Such was the philosophy by which I lived from 1874 to 1886, when first some
researches that will be dealt with in their proper place, and which led me
ultimately to the evidence I had before vainly demanded, began to shake my
confidence in its adequacy. Amid outer storm and turmoil and conflict, I found
it satisfy my intellect, while lofty ideals of morality fed my emotions. I
called myself Atheist, and rightly so, for I was without God, and my horizon was
bounded by life on earth; I gloried in the name then, as it is dear to my heart
now, for all the associations with which it is connected. "Atheist is one of the
grandest titles a man can wear; it is the Order of Merit of the world's heroes.
Most great discoverers, most deep-thinking philosophers, most earnest reformers,
most toiling pioneers of progress, have in their turn had flung at them the name
of Atheist. It was howled over the grave of Copernicus; it was clamoured round
the death-pile of Bruno; it was yelled at Vanini, at Spinoza, at Priestley, at
Voltaire, at Paine; it has become the laurel-bay of the hero, the halo of the
martyr; in the world's history it has meant the pioneer of progress, and where
the cry of 'Atheist' is raised there may we be sure that another step is being
taken towards the redemption of humanity. The saviours of the world are too
often howled at as Atheists, and then worshipped as Deities. The Atheists are
the vanguard of the army of Freethought, on whom falls the brunt of the battle,
and are shivered the hardest of the blows; their feet trample down the thorns
that others may tread unwounded; their bodies fill up the ditch that, by the
bridge thus made, others may pass to victory. Honour to the pioneers of
progress, honour to the vanguard of Liberty's army, honour to those who to improve
earth have forgotten heaven, and who in their zeal for man have forgotten God."[13]
178.
This poor
sketch of the conception of the universe, to which I had conquered my way at the
cost of so much pain, and which was the inner centre round which my life
revolved for twelve years, may perhaps show that the Atheistic Philosophy is
misjudged sorely when it is scouted as vile or condemned as intellectually
degraded. It has outgrown anthropomorphic deities, and it leaves us face to face
with Nature, open to all her purifying, strengthening inspirations. "There is
only one kind of prayer," it says, "which is reasonable, and that is the deep,
silent adoration of the greatness and beauty and order around us, as revealed in
the realms of non-rational life and in Humanity; as we bow our heads before the
laws of the universe, and mould our lives into obedience to their voice, we find
a strong, calm peace steal over our hearts, a perfect trust in the ultimate
triumph of the right, a quiet determination to 'make our lives sublime.' Before
our own high ideals, before those lives which show us 'how high the tides of
Divine life have risen in the human world,' we stand with hushed voice and
veiled face; from them we draw strength to emulate, and even dare struggle to
excel. The contemplation of the ideal is true prayer; it inspires, it
strengthens, it ennobles. The other part of prayer is work; from contemplation
to labour, from the forest to the street. Study nature's laws, conform to them,
work in harmony with them, and work becomes a prayer and a thanksgiving, an
adoration of the universal wisdom, and a true obedience to the universal law."[14]
179.
To a woman of
my temperament, filled with passionate desire for the bettering of the world,
the elevation of humanity, a lofty system of ethics was of even more importance
than a logical, intellectual conception of the universe; and the total loss of
all faith in a righteous God only made me more strenuously assertive of the
binding nature of duty and the overwhelming importance of conduct. In 1874 this
conviction found voice in a pamphlet on the "True Basis of Morality," and in all
the years of my propaganda on the platform of the National Secular Society no
subject was more frequently dealt with in my lectures than that of human ethical
growth and the duty of man to man. No thought was more constantly in my mind
than that of the importance of morals, and it was voiced at the very outset of
my public career. Speaking of the danger lest "in these stirring times of
inquiry," old sanctions of right conduct should be cast aside ere new ones were
firmly established, I wrote: "It therefore becomes the duty of every one who
fights in the ranks of Freethought, and who ventures to attack the dogmas of the
Churches, and to strike down the superstitions which enslave men's intellect, to
beware how he uproots sanctions of morality which he is too weak to replace, or
how, before he is prepared with better ones, he removes the barriers which do
yet, however poorly, to some extent check vice and repress crime.... That which
touches morality touches the heart of society; a high and pure morality is the
life-blood of humanity; mistakes in belief are inevitable, and are of little
moment; mistakes in life destroy happiness, and their destructive consequences
spread far and wide. It is, then, a very important question whether we, who are
endeavouring to take away from the world the authority on which has hitherto
been based all its morality, can offer a new and firm ground whereupon may
safely be built up the fair edifice of a noble life."
180.
I then
proceeded to analyse revelation and intuition as a basis for morals, and,
discarding both, I asserted: "The true basis of morality is utility; that is,
the adaptation of our actions to the promotion of the general welfare and
happiness; the endeavour so to rule our lives that we may serve and bless
mankind." And I argued for this basis, showing that the effort after virtue was
implied in the search for happiness: "Virtue is an indispensable part of all
true and solid happiness.... But it is, after all, only reasonable that
happiness should be the ultimate test of right and wrong, if we live, as we do,
in a realm of law. Obedience to law must necessarily result in harmony, and
disobedience in discord. But if obedience to law result in harmony it must also
result in happiness—all through nature obedience to law results in happiness,
and through obedience each living thing fulfils the perfection of its being, and
in that perfection finds its true happiness." It seemed to me most important to
remove morality from the controversies about religion, and to give it a basis of
its own: "As, then, the grave subject of the existence of Deity is a matter of
dispute, it is evidently of deep importance to society that morality should not
be dragged into this battlefield, to stand or totter with the various theories
of the Divine nature which human thought creates and destroys. If we can found
morality on a basis apart from theology, we shall do humanity a service which
can scarcely be overestimated." A study of the facts of nature, of the
consequences of man in society, seemed sufficient for such a basis. "Our
faculties do not suffice to tell us about God; they do suffice to study
phenomena, and to deduce laws from correlated facts. Surely, then, we should do
wisely to concentrate our strength and our energies on the discovery of the
attainable, instead of on the search after the unknowable. If we are told that
morality consists in obedience to the supposed will of a supposed perfectly
moral being, because in so doing we please God, then we are at once placed in a
region where our faculties are useless to us, and where our judgment is at
fault. But if we are told that we are to lead noble lives, because nobility of
life is desirable for itself alone, because in so doing we are acting in harmony
with the laws of Nature, because in so doing we spread happiness around our
pathway and gladden our fellow-men—then, indeed, motives are appealed to which
spring forward to meet the call, and chords are struck in our hearts which
respond in music to the touch." It was to the establishment of this secure basis
that I bent my energies, this that was to me of supreme moment. "Amid the fervid
movement of society, with its wild theories and crude social reforms, with its
righteous fury against oppression and its unconsidered notions of wider freedom
and gladder life, it is of vital importance that morality should stand on a
foundation unshakable; that so through all political and religious revolutions
human life may grow purer and nobler, may rise upwards into settled freedom, and
not sink downwards into anarchy. Only utility can afford us a sure basis, the
reasonableness of which will be accepted alike by thoughtful student and
hard-headed artisan. Utility appeals to all alike, and sets in action motives
which are found equally in every human heart. Well shall it be for humanity that
creeds and dogmas pass away, that superstition vanishes, and the clear light of
freedom and science dawns on a regenerated earth—but well only if men draw
tighter and closer the links of trustworthiness, of honour, and of truth.
Equality before the law is necessary and just; liberty is the birthright of
every man and woman; free individual development will elevate and glorify the
race. But little worth these priceless jewels, little worth liberty and equality
with all their promise for mankind, little worth even wider happiness, if that
happiness be selfish, if true fraternity, true brotherhood, do not knit man to
man, and heart to heart, in loyal service to the common need, and generous
self-sacrifice to the common good."[15]
181.
To the
forwarding of this moral growth of man, two things seemed to me necessary—an
Ideal which should stir the emotions and impel to action, and a clear
understanding of the sources of evil and of the methods by which they might be
drained. Into the drawing of the first I threw all the passion of my nature,
striving to paint the Ideal in colours which should enthral and fascinate, so
that love and desire to realise might stir man to effort. If "morality touched
by emotion" be religion, then truly was I the most religious of Atheists,
finding in this dwelling on and glorifying of the Ideal full satisfaction for
the loftiest emotions. To meet the fascination exercised over men's hearts by
the Man of Sorrows, I raised the image of man triumphant, man perfected.
"Rightly is the ideal Christian type of humanity a Man of Sorrows. Jesus, with
worn and wasted body; with sad, thin lips, curved into a mournful droop of
penitence for human sin; with weary eyes gazing up to heaven because despairing
of earth; bowed down and aged with grief and pain, broken-hearted with long
anguish, broken-spirited with unresisted ill-usage—such is the ideal man of the
Christian creed. Beautiful with a certain pathetic beauty, telling of the long
travail of earth, eloquent of the sufferings of humanity, but not the model type
to which men should conform their lives, if they would make humanity glorious.
And, therefore, in radiant contrast with this, stands out in the sunshine and
under the blue summer sky, far from graveyards and torture of death agony, the
fair ideal Humanity of the Atheist. In form strong and fair, perfect in physical
development as the Hercules of Grecian art, radiant with love, glorious in
self-reliant power; with lips bent firm to resist oppression, and melting into
soft curves of passion and of pity; with deep, far-seeing eyes, gazing
piercingly into the secrets of the unknown, and resting lovingly on the beauties
around him; with hands strong to work in the present; with heart full of hope
which the future shall realise; making earth glad with his labour and beautiful
with his skill—this, this is the Ideal Man, enshrined in the Atheist's heart.
The ideal humanity of the Christian is the humanity of the slave, poor, meek,
broken-spirited, humble, submissive to authority, however oppressive and unjust;
the ideal humanity of the Atheist is the humanity of the free man who knows no
lord, who brooks no tyranny, who relies on his own strength, who makes his
brother's quarrel his, proud, true-hearted, loyal, brave."[16]
182.
A one-sided
view? Yes. But a very natural outcome of a sunny nature, for years held down by
unhappiness and the harshness of an outgrown creed. It was the rebound of such a
nature suddenly set free, rejoicing in its liberty and self-conscious strength,
and it carried with it a great power of rousing the sympathetic enthusiasm of
men and women, deeply conscious of their own restrictions and their own
longings. It was the cry of the freed soul that had found articulate expression,
and the many inarticulate and prisoned souls answered to it tumultously, with
fluttering of caged wings. With hot insistence I battled for the inspiration to
be drawn from the beauty and grandeur of which human life was capable. "Will any
one exclaim, 'You are taking all beauty out of human life, all hope, all warmth,
all inspiration; you give us cold duty for filial obedience, and inexorable law
in the place of God'? All beauty from life? Is there, then, no beauty in the
idea of forming part of the great life of the universe, no beauty in conscious
harmony with Nature, no beauty in faithful service, no beauty in ideals of every
virtue? 'All hope'? Why, I give you more than hope, I give you certainty; if I
bid you labour for this world, it is with the knowledge that this world will
repay you a, thousand-fold, because society will grow purer, freedom more
settled, law more honoured, life more full and glad. What is your heaven? A
heaven in the clouds! I point to a heaven attainable on earth. 'All warmth'?
What! you serve warmly a God unknown and invisible, in a sense the projected
shadow of your own imaginings, and can only serve coldly your brother whom you
see at your side? There is no warmth in brightening the lot of the sad, in
reforming abuses, in establishing equal justice for rich and poor? You find
warmth in the church, but none in the home? Warmth in imagining the cloud
glories of heaven, but none in creating substantial glories on earth?' All
inspiration'? If you want inspiration to feeling, to sentiment, perhaps you had
better keep to your Bible and your creeds; if you want inspiration to work, go
and walk through the East of London, or the back streets of Manchester. You are
inspired to tenderness as you gaze at the wounds of Jesus, dead in Judaea long
ago, and find no inspiration in the wounds of men and women, dying in the
England of to-day? You 'have tears to shed for Him,' but none for the sufferer
at your doors? His passion arouses your sympathies, but you see no pathos in the
passion of the poor? Duty is colder than 'filial obedience'? What do you mean by
filial obedience? Obedience to your ideal of goodness and love—is it not so?
Then how is duty cold? I offer you ideals for your homage: here is Truth for
your Mistress, to whose exaltation you shall devote your intellect; here is
Freedom for your General, for whose triumph you shall fight; here is Love for
your Inspirer, who shall influence your every thought; here is Man for your
Master—not in heaven, but on earth—to whose service you shall consecrate every
faculty of your being. 'Inexorable law in the place of God'? Yes; a stern
certainty that you shall not waste your life, yet gather a rich reward at the
close; that you shall not sow misery, yet reap gladness; that you shall not be
selfish, yet be crowned with love; nor shall you sin, yet find safety in
repentance. True, our creed is a stern one, stern with the beautiful
sternness of Nature. But if we be in the right, look to yourselves; laws do not
check their action for your ignorance; fire will not cease to scorch, because
you 'did not know.'"[17]
183.
With equal
vigour did I maintain that "virtue was its own reward," and that payment on the
other side of the grave was unnecessary as an incentive to right living. "What
shall we say to Miss Cobbe's contention that duty will 'grow grey and cold'
without God and immortality? Yes, for those with whom duty is a matter of
selfish calculation, and who are virtuous only because they look for a 'golden
crown' in payment on the other side the grave. Those of us who find joy in
right-doing, who work because work is useful to our fellows, who live well
because in such living we pay our contribution to the world's wealth, leaving
earth richer than we found it—we need no paltry payment after death for our
life's labour, for in that labour is its own 'exceeding great reward.'"[18]
But did any one yearn for immortality, that "not all of me shall die"? "Is it true that
Atheism has no immortality? What is true immortality? Is Beethoven's true
immortality in his continued personal consciousness, or in his glorious music
deathless while the world endures? Is Shelley's true life in his existence in
some far-off heaven, or in the pulsing liberty his lyrics send through men's
hearts, when they respond to the strains of his lyre? Music does not die, though
one instrument be broken; thought does not die, though one brain be shivered;
love does not die, though one heart's strings be rent; and no great thinker dies
so long as his thought re-echoes through the ages, its melody the fuller-toned
the more human brains send its music on. Not only to the hero and the sage is
this immortality given; it belongs to each according to the measure of his
deeds; world-wide life for world-wide service; straitened life for straitened
work; each reaps as he sows, and the harvest is gathered by each in his rightful
order."[19]
184.
This longing
to leave behind a name that will live among men by right of service done them,
this yearning for human love and approval that springs naturally from the
practical and intense realisation of human brotherhood—these will be found as
strong motives in the breasts of the most earnest men and women who have in our
generation identified themselves with the Freethought cause. They shine through
the written and spoken words of Charles Bradlaugh all through his life, and
every friend of his knows how often he has expressed the longing that "when the
grass grows green over my grave, men may love me a little for the work I tried
to do."
185.
Needless to
say that, in the many controversies in which I took part, it was often urged
against me that such motives were insufficient, that they appealed only to
natures already ethically developed, and left the average man, and, above all,
the man below the average, with no sufficiently constraining motive for right
conduct. I resolutely held to my faith in human nature, and the inherent
response of the human heart when appealed to from the highest grounds; strange—I
often think now—this instinctive certainty I had of man's innate grandeur, that
governed all my thought, inconsistent as that certainty was with my belief in
his purely animal ancestry. Pressed too hard, I would take refuge in a
passionate disdain for all who did not hear the thrilling voice of Virtue and
love her for her own sweet sake. "I have myself heard the question asked: 'Why
should I seek for truth, and why should I lead a good life, if there be no
immortality in which to reap a reward?' To this question the Freethinker has one
clear and short answer: 'There is no reason why you should seek Truth, if to you
the search has no attracting power. There is no reason why you should lead a
noble life, if you find your happiness in leading a poor and a base one.'
Friends, no one can enjoy a happiness which is too high for his capabilities; a
book may be of intensest interest, but a dog will very much prefer being given a
bone. To him whose highest interest is centred in his own miserable self, to him
who cares only to gain his own ends, to him who seeks only his own individual
comfort, to that man Freethought can have no attraction. Such a man may indeed
be made religious by a bribe of heaven; he may be led to seek for truth, because
he hopes to gain his reward hereafter by the search; but Truth disdains the
service of the self-seeker; she cannot be grasped by a hand that itches for
reward. If Truth is not loved for her own pure sake, if to lead a noble life, if
to make men happier, if to spread brightness around us, if to leave the world
better than we found it—if these aims have no attraction for us, if these
thoughts do not inspire us, then we are not worthy to be Secularists, we have no
right to the proud title of Freethinkers. If you want to be paid for your good
lives by living for ever in a lazy and useless fashion in an idle heaven; if you
want to be bribed into nobility of life; if, like silly children, you learn your
lesson not to gain knowledge but to win sugar-plums, then you had better go back
to your creeds and your churches; they are all you are fit for; you are not
worthy to be free. But we—who, having caught a glimpse of the beauty of Truth,
deem the possession of her worth more than all the world beside; who have made
up our minds to do our work ungrudgingly, asking for no reward beyond the
results which spring up from our labour—we will spread the Gospel of Freethought
among men, until the sad minor melodies of Christianity have sobbed out their
last mournful notes on the dying evening breeze, and on the fresh morning winds
shall ring out the chorus of hope and joyfulness, from the glad lips of men whom
the Truth has at last set free."[20]
186.
The
intellectual comprehension of the sources of evil and the method of its
extinction was the second great plank in my ethical platform. The study of
Darwin and Herbert Spencer, of Huxley, Büchner and Haeckel, had not only
convinced me of the truth of evolution, but, with help from W.H. Clifford,
Lubbock, Buckle, Lecky, and many another, had led me to see in the evolution of
the social instinct the explanation of the growth of conscience and of the
strengthening of man's mental and moral nature. If man by study of the
conditions surrounding him and by the application of intelligence to the subdual
of external nature, had already accomplished so much, why should not further
persistence along the same road lead to his complete emancipation? All the evil,
anti-social side of his nature was an inheritance from his brute ancestry, and
could be gradually eradicated; he could not only "let the ape and tiger die,"
but he could kill them out." It may be frankly acknowledged that man inherits
from his brute progenitors various bestial tendencies which are in course of
elimination. The wild-beast desire to fight is one of these, and this has been
encouraged, not checked, by religion.... Another bestial tendency is the lust of
the male for the female apart from love, duty, and loyalty; this again has been
encouraged by religion, as witness the polygamy and concubinage of the
Hebrews—as in Abraham, David, and Solomon, not to mention the precepts of the
Mosaic laws—the bands of male and female prostitutes in connection with Pagan
temples, and the curious outbursts of sexual passion in connection with
religious revivals and missions. Another bestial tendency is greed, the
strongest grabbing all he can and trampling down the weak, in the mad struggle
for wealth; how and when has religion modified this tendency, sanctified as it
is in our present civilisation? All these bestial tendencies will be eradicated
only by the recognition of human duty, of the social bond. Religion has not
eradicated them, but science, by tracing them to their source in our brute
ancestry, has explained them and has shown them in their true light. As each
recognises that the anti-social tendencies are the bestial tendencies in man,
and that man in evolving further must evolve out of these, each also feels it
part of his personal duty to curb these in himself, and so to rise further from
the brute. This rational 'co-operation with Nature' distinguishes the scientific
from the religious person, and this constraining sense of obligation is becoming
stronger and stronger in all those who, in losing faith in God, have gained hope
for man."[21]
187.
For this
rational setting of oneself on the side of the forces working for evolution
implied active co-operation by personal purity and nobility." To the Atheist it
seems that the knowledge that the perfecting of the race is only possible by the
improvement of the individual, supplies the most constraining motive which can
be imagined for efforts after personal perfection. The Theist may desire
personal perfection, but his desire is self-centred; each righteous individual
is righteous, as it were, alone, and his righteousness does not benefit his
fellows save as it may make him helpful and loving in his dealings with them.
The Atheist desires personal perfection not only for his joy in it as beautiful
in itself, but because science has taught him the unity of the race, and he
knows that each fresh conquest of his over the baser parts of his nature, and
each strengthening of the higher, is a gain for all, and not for himself alone."[22]
188.
Besides all
this, the struggle against evil, regarded as transitory and as a necessary
concomitant of evolution, loses its bitterness. "In dealing with evil, Atheism
is full of hope instead of despair. To the Christian, evil is as everlasting as
good; it exists by the permission of God, and, therefore, by the will of God.
Our nature is corrupt, inclined to evil; the devil is ever near us, working all
sin and all misery. What hope has the Christian face to face with a world's
wickedness? what answer to the question, Whence comes sin? To the Atheist the
terrible problem has in it no figure of despair. Evil comes from ignorance, we
say; ignorance of physical and of moral facts. Primarily, from ignorance of
physical order; parents who dwell in filthy, unventilated, unweathertight
houses, who live on insufficient, innutritious, unwholesome food, will
necessarily be unhealthy, will lack vitality, will probably have disease lurking
in their veins; such parents will bring into the world ill-nurtured children, in
whom the brain will generally be the least developed part of the body; such
children, by their very formation, will incline to the animal rather than to the
human, and by leading an animal, or natural, life will be deficient in those
qualities which are necessary in social life. Their surroundings as they grow
up, the home, the food, the associates, all are bad. They are trained into vice,
educated into criminality; so surely as from the sown corn rises the wheat-ear,
so from the sowing of misery, filth, and starvation shall arise crime. And the
root of all is poverty and ignorance. Educate the children, and give them fair
wage for fair work in their maturity, and crime will gradually diminish and
ultimately disappear. Man is God-made, says Theism; man is circumstance-made,
says Atheism. Man is the resultant of what his parents were, of what his
surroundings have been and are, and of what they have made him; himself the
result of the past he modifies the actual, and so the action and reaction go on,
he himself the effect of what is past, and one of the causes of what is to come.
Make the circumstances good and the results will be good, for healthy bodies and
healthy brains may be built up, and from a State composed of such the disease of
crime will have disappeared. Thus is our work full of hope; no terrible will of
God have we to struggle against; no despairful future to look forward to, of a
world growing more and more evil, until it is, at last, to burned up; but a
glad, fair future of an ever-rising race, where more equal laws, more general
education, more just division, shall eradicate pauperism, destroy ignorance,
nourish independence, a future to be made the grander by our struggles, a future
to be made the nearer by our toil."[23]
189.
This joyous,
self-reliant facing of the world with the resolute determination to improve it
is characteristic of the noblest Atheism of our day. And it is thus a distintly
elevating factor in the midst of the selfishness, luxury, and greed of modern
civilisation. It is a virile virtue in the midst of the calculating and slothful
spirit which too ofter veils itself under the pretence or religion. It will have
no putting off of justice to a far-off day of reckoning, and it is ever spurred
on by the feeling, "The night cometh, when no man can work." Bereft of all hope
of a personal future, it binds up its hopes with that of the race; unbelieving
in any aid from Deity, it struggles the more strenuously to work out man's
salvation by his own strength. "To us there is but small comfort in Miss Cobbe's
assurance that 'earth's wrongs and agonies' 'will be righted hereafter.'
Granting for a moment that man survives death what certainty have we that 'the
next world' will be any improvement on this? Miss Cobbe assures us that this is
'God's world'; whose world will the next be, if not also His? Will He be
stronger there or better, that He should set right in that world the wrongs He
has permitted here? Will He have changed His mind, or have become weary of the
contemplation of suffering? To me the thought that the world was in the hands of
a God who permitted all the present wrongs and pains to exist would be
intolerable, maddening in its hopelessness. There is every hope of righting
earth's wrongs and of curing earth's pains if the reason and skill of man which
have already done so much are free to do the rest; but if they are to strive
against omnipotence, hopeless indeed is the future of the world. It is in this
sense that the Atheist looks on good as 'the final goal of ill,' and believing
that that goal will be reached the sooner the more strenuous the efforts of each
individual, he works in the glad certainty that he is aiding the world's
progress thitherward. Not dreaming of a personal reward hereafter, not craving a
personal payment from heavenly treasury, he works and loves, content that he is
building a future fairer than his present, joyous that he is creating a new
earth for a happier race."[24]
190.
Such was the
creed and such the morality which governed my life and thoughts from 1874 to
1886, and with some misgivings to 1889, and from which I drew strength and
happiness amid all outer struggles and distress. And I shall ever remain
grateful for the intellectual and moral training it gave me, for the
self-reliance it nurtured, for the altruism it inculcated, for the deep feeling
of the unity of man that it fostered, for the inspiration to work that it lent.
And perhaps the chief debt of gratitude I owe to Freethought is that it left the
mind ever open to new truth, encouraged the most unshrinking questioning of
Nature, and shrank from no new conclusions, however adverse to the old, that
were based on solid evidence. I admit sorrowfully that all Freethinkers do not
learn this lesson, but I worked side by side with Charles Bradlaugh, and the
Freethought we strove to spread was strong-headed and broad-hearted.
191.
The
antagonism which, as we shall see in a few moments, blazed out against me from
the commencement of my platform work, was based partly on ignorance, was partly
aroused by my direct attacks on Christianity, and by the combative spirit I
myself showed in those attacks, and very largely by my extreme Radicalism in
politics. I had against me all the conventional beliefs and traditions of
society in general, and I attacked them, not with bated breath and abundant
apologies, but joyously and defiantly, with sheer delight in the intellectual
strife. I was fired, too, with passionate sympathy for the sufferings of the
poor, for the overburdened, overdriven masses of the people, not only here but
in every land, and wherever a blow was struck at Liberty or Justice my pen or
tongue brake silence. It was a perpetual carrying of the fiery cross, and the
comfortable did not thank me for shaking them out of their soft repose.
192.
The
antagonism that grew out of ignorance regarded Atheism as implying degraded
morality and bestial life, and they assailed my conduct not on evidence that it
was evil, but on the presumption that an Atheist must be immoral. Thus a
Christian opponent at Leicester assailed me as a teacher of free love, fathering
on me views which were maintained in a book that I had not read, but which,
before I had ever seen the National Reformer, had been reviewed in its
columns—as it was reviewed in other London papers—and had been commended for its
clear statement of the Malthusian position, but not for its contention as to
free love, a theory to which Mr. Bradlaugh was very strongly opposed. Nor were
the attacks confined to the ascription to me of theories which I did not hold,
but agents of the Christian Evidence Society, in their street preaching, made
the foulest accusations against me of personal immorality. Remonstrances
addressed to the Rev. Mr. Engström, the secretary of the society, brought
voluble protestations of disavowal and disapproval; but as the peccant agents
were continued in their employment, the apologies were of small value. No
accusation was too coarse, no slander too baseless, for circulation by these
men; and for a long time these indignities caused me bitter suffering, outraging
my pride, and soiling my good name. The time was to come when I should throw
that good name to the winds for the sake of the miserable, but in those early
days I had done nothing to merit, even ostensibly, such attacks. Even by
educated writers, who should have known better, the most wanton accusations of
violence and would-be destructiveness were brought against Atheists; thus Miss
Frances Power Cobbe wrote in the Contemporary Review that loss of faith
in God would bring about the secularisation or destruction of all
cathedrals, churches, and chapels. "Why," I wrote in answer, "should cathedrals,
churches, and chapels be destroyed? Atheism will utilise, not destroy, the
beautiful edifices which, once wasted on God, shall hereafter be consecrated for
man. Destroy Westminster Abbey, with its exquisite arches, its glorious tones of
soft, rich colour, its stonework light as if of cloud, its dreamy, subdued
twilight, soothing as the 'shadow of a great rock in a weary land'? Nay, but
reconsecrate it to humanity. The fat cherubs who tumble over guns and banners on
soldiers' graves will fitly be removed to some spot where their clumsy forms
will no longer mar the upward-springing grace of lines of pillar and of arch;
but the glorious building wherein now barbaric psalms are chanted and droning
canons preach of Eastern follies, shall hereafter echo the majestic music of
Wagner and Beethoven, and the teachers of the future shall there unveil to
thronging multitudes the beauties and the wonders of the world. The 'towers and
spires' will not be effaced, but they will no longer be symbols of a religion
which sacrifices earth to heaven and Man to God."[25]
Between the cultured and the uncultured burlesques of Atheism we came off pretty
badly, being for the most part regarded, as the late Cardinal Manning termed us,
as mere "cattle."
193.
The moral
purity and elevation of Atheistic teaching were overlooked by many who heard
only of my bitter attacks on Christian theology. Against the teachings of
eternal torture, of the vicarious atonement, of the infallibility of the Bible,
I levelled all the strength of my brain and tongue, and I exposed the history of
the Christian Church with unsparing hand, its persecutions, its religious wars,
its cruelties, its oppressions. Smarting under the suffering inflicted on
myself, and wroth with the cruel pressure continually put on Freethinkers by
Christian employers, speaking under constant threats of prosecution, identifying
Christianity with the political and social tyrannies of Christendom, I used
every weapon that history, science, criticism, scholarship could give me against
the Churches; eloquence, sarcasm, mockery, all were called on to make breaches
in the wall of traditional belief and crass superstition.
194.
To argument
and reason I was ever ready to listen, but I turned a front of stubborn defiance
to all attempts to compel assent to Christianity by appeals to force. "The
threat and the enforcement of legal and social penalties against unbelief can
never compel belief. Belief must be gained by demonstration; it can never be
forced by punishment. Persecution makes the stronger among us bitter; the weaker
among us hypocrites; it never has made and never can make an honest convert."[26]
195.
That men and
women are now able to speak and think as openly as they do, that a broader
spirit is visible in the Churches, that heresy is no longer regarded as morally
disgraceful—these things are very largely due to the active and militant
propaganda carried on under the leadership of Charles Bradlaugh, whose nearest
and most trusted friend I was. That my tongue was in the early days bitterer
than it should have been, I frankly acknowledge; that I ignored the services
done by Christianity and threw light only on its crimes, thus committing
injustice, I am ready to admit. But these faults were conquered long ere I left
the Atheistic camp, and they were the faults of my personality, not of the
Atheistic philosophy. And my main contentions were true, and needed to be made;
from many a Christian pulpit to-day may be heard the echo of the Freethought
teachings; men's minds have been awakened, their knowledge enlarged; and while I
condemn the unnecessary harshness of some of my language, I rejoice that I
played my part in that educating of England which has made impossible for
evermore the crude superstitions of the past, and the repetition of the
cruelties and injustices under which preceding heretics suffered.
196.
But my
extreme political views had also much to do with the general feeling of hatred
with which I was regarded. Politics, as such, I cared not for at all, for the
necessary compromises of political life were intolerable to me; but wherever
they touched on the life of the people they became to me of burning interest.
The land question, the incidence of taxation, the cost of Royalty, the
obstructive power of the House of Lords—these were the matters to which I put my
hand; I was a Home Ruler, too, of course, and a passionate opponent of all
injustice to nations weaker than ourselves, so that I found myself always in
opposition to the Government of the day. Against our aggressive and oppressive
policy in Ireland, in the Transvaal, in India, in Afghanistan, in Burmah, in
Egypt, I lifted up my voice in all our great towns, trying to touch the
consciences of the people, and to make them feel the immorality of a
land-stealing, piratical policy. Against war, against capital punishment,
against flogging, demanding national education instead of big guns, public
libraries instead of warships—no wonder I was denounced as an agitator, a
firebrand, and that all orthodox society turned up at me its most respectable
nose.
(1) CHAPTER VIII.
197.
AT WORK.
198.
From this
sketch of the inner sources of action let me turn to the actions themselves, and
see how the outer life was led which fed itself at these springs.
199.
I have said
that the friendship between Mr. Bradlaugh and myself dated from our first
meeting, and a few days after our talk in Turner Street he came down to see me
at Norwood. It was characteristic of the man that he refused my first
invitation, and bade me to think well ere I asked him to my house. He told me
that he was so hated by English society that any friend of his would be certain
to suffer, and that I should pay heavily for any friendship extended to him.
When, however, I wrote to him, repeating my invitation, and telling him that I
had counted the cost, he came to see me. His words came true; my friendship for
him alienated from me even many professed Freethinkers, but the strength and the
happiness of it outweighed a thousand times the loss it brought, and never has a
shadow of regret touched me that I clasped hands with him in 1874, and won the
noblest friend that woman ever had. He never spoke to me a harsh word; where we
differed, he never tried to override my judgment, nor force on me his views; we
discussed all points of difference as equal friends; he guarded me from all
suffering as far as friend might, and shared with me all the pain he could not
turn aside; all the brightness of my stormy life came to me through him, from
his tender thoughtfulness, his ever-ready sympathy, his generous love. He was
the most unselfish man I ever knew, and as patient as he was strong. My quick,
impulsive nature found in him the restful strength it needed, and learned from
him the self-control it lacked.
200.
He was the
merriest of companions in our rare hours of relaxation; for many years he was
wont to come to my house in the morning, after the hours always set aside by him
for receiving poor men who wanted advice on legal and other matters—for he was a
veritable poor man's lawyer, always ready to help and counsel—and, bringing his
books and papers, he would sit writing, hour after hour, I equally busy with my
own work, now and then, perhaps, exchanging a word, breaking off just for lunch
and dinner, and working on again in the evening till about ten o'clock—he always
went early to bed when at home—he would take himself off again to his lodgings,
about three-quarters of a mile away. Sometimes he would play cards for an hour,
euchre being our favourite game. But while we were mostly busy and grave, we
would make holiday sometimes, and then he was like a boy, brimming over with
mirth, full of quaint turns of thought and speech; all the country round London
has for me bright memories of our wanderings—Richmond, where we tramped across
the park, and sat under its mighty trees; Windsor, with its groves of bracken;
Kew, where we had tea in a funny little room, with watercress ad libitum;
Hampton Court, with its dishevelled beauties; Maidenhead and Taplow, where the
river was the attraction; and, above all, Broxbourne, where he delighted to
spend the day with his fishing-rod, wandering along the river, of which he knew
every eddy. For he was a great fisherman, and he taught me all the mysteries of
the craft, mirthfully disdainful of my dislike of the fish when I had caught
them. And in those days he would talk of all his hopes of the future, of his
work, of his duty to the thousands who looked to him for guidance, of the time
when he would sit in Parliament as member for Northampton, and help to pass into
laws the projects of reform for which he was battling with pen and tongue. How
often he would voice his love of England, his admiration of her Parliament, his
pride in her history. Keenly alive to the blots upon it in her sinful wars of
conquest, in the cruel wrongs inflicted upon subject peoples, he was yet an
Englishman to the heart's core, but feeling above all the Englishman's duty, as
one of a race that had gripped power and held it, to understand the needs of
those he ruled, and to do justice willingly, since compulsion to justice there
was none. His service to India in the latest years of his life was no suddenly
accepted task. He had spoken for her, pleaded for her, for many a long year,
through press and on platform, and his spurs as member for India were won long
ere he was member of Parliament.
201.
A place on
the staff of the National Reformer was offered me by Mr. Bradlaugh a few
days after our first meeting, and the small weekly salary thus earned—it was
only a guinea, for national reformers are always poor—was a very welcome
addition to my resources. My first contribution appeared in the number for
August 30, 1874, over the signature of "Ajax," and I wrote in it regularly until
Mr. Bradlaugh died; from 1877 until his death I sub-edited it, so as to free him
from all the technical trouble and the weary reading of copy, and for part of
this period was also co-editor. I wrote at first under a nom de guerre,
because the work I was doing for Mr. Scott would have been prejudiced had my
name appeared in the columns of the terrible National Reformer, and until
this work—commenced and paid for—was concluded I did not feel at liberty to use
my own name. Afterwards, I signed my National Reformer articles, and the
tracts written for Mr. Scott appeared anonymously.
202.
The name was
suggested by the famous statue of "Ajax Crying for Light," a cast of which may
be seen in the centre walk by any visitor to the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. The
cry through the darkness for light, even though light should bring destruction,
was one that awoke the keenest sympathy of response from my heart:
(1)
"If our fate
be death
Give light, and let us die!"
203.
To see, to
know, to understand, even though the seeing blind, though the knowledge sadden,
though the understanding shatter the dearest hopes—such has ever been the
craving of the upward-striving mind in man. Some regard it as a weakness, as a
folly, but I am sure that it exists most strongly in some of the noblest of our
race; that from the lips of those who have done most in lifting the burden of
ignorance from the overstrained and bowed shoulders of a stumbling world has
gone out most often into the empty darkness the pleading, impassioned cry:
204.
"Give light!"
205.
The light may
come with a blinding flash, but it is light none the less, and we can see.
206.
And now the
time had come when I was to use that gift of speech which I had discovered in
Sibsey Church that I possessed, and to use it to move hearts and brains all over
the English land. In 1874, tentatively, and in 1875 definitely, I took up this
keen weapon, and have used it ever since. My first attempt was at a garden
party, in a brief informal debate, and I found that words came readily and
smoothly: the second in a discussion at the Liberal Social Union on the opening
of museums and art galleries on Sunday. My first lecture was given at the
Co-operative Institute, 55, Castle Street, Oxford Street, on August 25, 1874.
Mr. Greening—then, I think, the secretary—had invited me to read a paper before
the society, and had left me the choice of the subject. I resolved that my first
public lecture should be on behalf of my own sex, so I selected for my theme,
"The Political Status of Women," and wrote thereon a paper. But it was a very
nervous person who presented herself at the Co-operative Institute on that
August evening. When a visit to the dentist is made, and one stands on the steps
outside, desiring to run away ere the neat little boy in buttons opens the door
and beams on one with a smile of compassionate superiority and implike triumph,
then the world seems dark and life is as a huge blunder. But all such feelings
are poor and weak as compared with the sinking of the heart and the trembling of
the knees which seize upon the unhappy lecturer as he advances towards his first
audience, and as before his eyes rises a ghastly vision of a tongue-tied
would-be lecturer, facing rows of listening faces, listening to—silence. But to
my surprise all this miserable feeling vanished the moment I was on my feet and
was looking at the faces before me. I felt no tremor of nervousness from the
first word to the last, and as I heard my own voice ring out over the attentive
listeners I was conscious of power and of pleasure, not of fear. And from that
day to this my experience has been the same; before a lecture I am horribly
nervous, wishing myself at the ends of the earth, heart beating violently, and
sometimes overcome by deadly sickness. Once on my feet, I feel perfectly at my
ease, ruler of the crowd, master of myself. I often jeer at myself mentally as I
feel myself throbbing and fearful, knowing that when I stand up I shall be all
right, and yet I cannot conquer the physical terror and trembling, illusory as I
know them to be. People often say to me, "You look too ill to go on the
platform." And I smile feebly and say I am all right, and I often fancy that the
more miserably nervous I am in the ante-room, the better I speak when once on
the platform. My second lecture was delivered on September 27th, at Mr. Moncure
D. Conway's Chapel, in St. Paul's Road, Camden Town, and redelivered a few weeks
later at a Unitarian Chapel, where the Rev. Peter Dean was minister. This was on
the "True Basis of Morality," and was later printed as a pamphlet, which
attained a wide circulation. This was all I did in the way of speaking in 1874,
but I took silent part in an electioneering struggle at Northampton, where a
seat for the House of Commons had fallen vacant by the death of Mr. Charles
Gilpin. Mr. Bradlaugh had contested the borough as a Radical in 1868, obtaining
1,086 votes, and again in February, 1874, when he received 1,653; of these no
less than 1,060 were plumpers, while his four opponents had only 113, 64, 21 and
12 plumpers respectively; this band formed the compact and personally loyal
following which was to win the seat for its chief in 1880, after twelve years of
steady struggle, and to return him over and over again to Parliament during the
long contest which followed his election, and which ended in his final triumph.
They never wavered in their allegiance to "our Charlie," but stood by him
through evil report and good report, when he was outcast as when he was
triumphant, loving him with a deep, passionate devotion, as honourable to them
as it was precious to him. I have seen him cry like a child at evidences of
their love for him, he whose courage no danger could daunt, and who was never
seen to blench before hatred nor change his stern immobility in the face of his
foes. Iron to enmity, he was soft as a woman to kindness; unbending as steel to
pressure, he was ductile as wax to love. John Stuart Mill had the insight in
1868 to see his value, and the courage to recognise it. He strongly supported
his candidature, and sent a donation to his election expenses. In his
"Autobiography" he wrote (pp. 311, 312):—
207.
"He had the
support of the working classes; having heard him speak I knew him to be a man of
ability, and he had proved that he was the reverse of a demagogue by placing
himself in strong opposition to the prevailing opinion of the Democratic party
on two such important subjects as Malthusianism and Proportional Representation.
Men of this sort, who, while sharing the democratic feeling of the working
classes, judge political questions for themselves, and have the courage to
assert their individual convictions against popular opposition, were needed, as
it seemed to me, in Parliament; and I did not think that Mr. Bradlaugh's
anti-religious opinions (even though he had been intemperate in the expression
of them) ought to exclude him."
208.
It has been
said that Mr. Mill's support of Mr. Bradlaugh's candidature at Northampton cost
him his own seat at Westminster, and so bitter was bigotry at that time that the
statement is very likely to be true. On this, Mr. Mill himself said: "It was the
right thing to do, and if the election were yet to take place, I would do it
again."
209.
At this
election of September, 1874—the second in the year, for the general election had
taken place in the February, and Mr. Bradlaugh had been put up and defeated
during his absence in America—I went down to Northampton to report
electioneering incidents for the National Reformer, and spent some days
there in the whirl of the struggle. The Whig party was more bitter against Mr.
Bradlaugh than was the Tory. Strenuous efforts were made to procure a Liberal
candidate, who would be able at least to prevent Mr. Bradlaugh's return, and, by
dividing the Liberal and Radical party, should let in a Tory rather than the
detested Radical. Messrs. Bell and James and Dr. Pearce came on the scene only
to disappear. Mr. Jacob Bright and Mr. Arnold Morley were vainly suggested. Mr.
Ayrton's name was whispered. Major Lumley was recommended by Mr. Bernal Osborne.
Dr. Kenealy proclaimed himself ready to come to the rescue of the Whigs. Mr.
Tillett, of Norwich, Mr. Cox, of Belper, were invited, but neither would consent
to oppose a good Radical who had fought two elections at Northampton and had
been the chosen of the Radical workers for six years. At last Mr. William
Fowler, a banker, accepted the task of handing over the representation of a
Liberal and Radical borough to a Tory, and duly succeeded in giving the seat to
Mr. Mereweather, a very reputable Tory lawyer. Mr. Bradlaugh polled 1,766, thus
adding another 133 voters to those who had polled for him in the previous
February.
210.
That election
gave me my first experience of anything in the nature of rioting. The violent
abuse levelled against Mr. Bradlaugh by the Whigs, and the foul and wicked
slanders circulated against him, assailing his private life and family
relations, had angered almost to madness those who knew and loved him; and when
it was found that the unscrupulous Whig devices had triumphed, had turned the
election against him, and given over the borough to a Tory, the fury broke out
into open violence. One illustration may be given as a type of these cruel
slanders. It was known that Mr. Bradlaugh was separated from his wife, and it
was alleged that being an Atheist, and, (therefore!) an opponent of marriage, he
had deserted his wife and children, and left them to the workhouse. The cause of
the separation was known to very few, for Mr. Bradlaugh was chivalrously
honourable to women, and he would not shield his own good name at the cost of
that of the wife of his youth and the mother of his children. But since his
death his only remaining child has, in devotion to her father's memory, stated
the melancholy truth: that Mrs. Bradlaugh gave way to drink; that for long years
he bore with her and did all that man could do to save her; that finally,
hopeless of cure, he broke up his home, and placed his wife in the care of her
parents in the country, leaving her daughters with her, while he worked for
their support. No man could have acted more generously and wisely under these
cruel circumstances than he did, but it was, perhaps, going to an extreme of
Quixotism, that he concealed the real state of the case, and let the public
blame him as it would. His Northampton followers did not know the facts, but
they knew him as an upright, noble man, and these brutal attacks on his personal
character drove them wild. Stray fights had taken place during the election over
these slanders, and, defeated by such foul weapons, the people lost control of
their passions. As Mr. Bradlaugh was sitting well-nigh exhausted in the hotel,
after the declaration of the poll, the landlord rushed in, crying to him to go
out and try to stop the people, or there would be murder done at the
"Palmerston," Mr. Fowler's headquarters; the crowd was charging the door, and
the windows were being broken with showers of stones. Weary as he was, Mr.
Bradlaugh sprang to his feet, and swiftly made his way to the rescue of those
who had maligned and defeated him. Flinging himself before the doorway, from
which the door had just been battered down, he knocked down one or two of the
most violent, drove the crowd back, argued and scolded them into quietness, and
finally dispersed them. But at nine o'clock he had to leave Northampton to catch
the mail steamer for America at Queenstown, and after he had left, word went
round that he had gone, and the riot he had quelled broke out afresh. The Riot
Act was at last read, the soldiers were called out, stones flew freely, heads
and windows were broken, but no very serious harm was done. The "Palmerston" and
the printing-office of the Mercury, the Whig organ, were the principal
sufferers; doors and windows disappearing somewhat completely. The day after the
election I returned home, and soon after fell ill with a severe attack of
congestion of the lungs. Soon after my recovery I left Norwood and settled in a
house in Westbourne Terrace, Bayswater, where I remained till 1876.
211.
In the
following January (1875), after much thought and self-analysis, I resolved to
give myself wholly to propagandist work, as a Freethinker and a Social Reformer,
and to use my tongue as well as my pen in the struggle. I counted the cost ere I
determined on this step, for I knew that it would not only outrage the feelings
of such new friends as I had already made, but would be likely to imperil my
custody of my little girl. I knew that an Atheist was outside the law, obnoxious
to its penalties, but deprived of its protection, and that the step I
contemplated might carry me into conflicts in which everything might be lost and
nothing could be gained. But the desire to spread liberty and truer thought
among men, to war against bigotry and superstition, to make the world freer and
better than I found it—all this impelled me with a force that would not be
denied. I seemed to hear the voice of Truth ringing over the battlefield: "Who
will go? Who will speak for me?" And I sprang forward with passionate
enthusiasm, with resolute cry: "Here am I, send me!" Nor have I ever regretted
for one hour that resolution, come to in solitude, carried out amid the surging
life of men, to devote to that sacred cause every power of brain and tongue that
I possessed. Very solemn to me is the responsibility of the public teacher,
standing forth in Press and on platform to partly mould the thought of his time,
swaying thousands of readers and hearers year after year. No weighter
responsibility can any take, no more sacred charge. The written and the spoken
word start forces none may measure, set working brain after brain, influence
numbers unknown to the forthgiver of the word, work for good or for evil all
down the stream of time. Feeling the greatness of the career, the solemnity of
the duty, I pledged my word then to the cause I loved that no effort on my part
should be wanted to render myself worthy of the privilege of service that I
took; that I would read and study, and would train every faculty that I had;
that I would polish my language, discipline my thought, widen my knowledge; and
this, at least, I may say, that if I have written and spoken much, I have
studied and thought more, and that I have not given to my mistress Truth that
"which hath cost me nothing."
212.
This same
year (1875) that saw me launched on the world as a public advocate of
Freethought, saw also the founding of the Theosophical Society to which my
Freethought was to lead me. I have often since thought with pleasure that at the
very time I began lecturing in England, H.P. Blavatsky was at work in the United
States, preparing the foundation on which in November, 1875, the Theosophical
Society was to be raised. And with deeper pleasure yet have I found her writing
of what she called the noble work against superstition done by Charles Bradlaugh
and myself, rendering the propaganda of Theosophy far more practicable and safer
than it would otherwise have been. The fight soon began, and with some queer
little skirmishes. I was a member of the "Liberal Social Union," and one night a
discussion arose as to the admissibility of Atheists to the Society. Dr. Zerffi
declared that he would not remain a member if avowed Atheists were admitted. I
promptly declared that I was an Atheist, and that the basis of the union was
liberty of opinion. The result was that I found myself cold-shouldered, and
those that had been warmly cordial to me merely as a non-Christian looked
askance at me when I had avowed that my scepticism had advanced beyond their
"limits of religious thought." The Liberal Social Union soon knew me no more,
but in the wider field of work open before me, the narrow-mindedness of this
petty clique troubled me not at all.
213.
I started my
definite lecturing work at South Place Chapel in January, 1875, Mr. Moncure D.
Conway presiding for me, and I find in the National Reformer
for January 17th, the announcement that "Mrs. Annie Besant ('Ajax') will lecture
at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, on 'Civil and Religious Liberty.'" Thus I threw
off my pseudonym, and rode into the field of battle with uplifted visor. The
identification led to an odd little exhibition of bigotry. I had been invited by
the Dialectical Society to read a paper, and had selected for subject, "The
Existence of God." (It may be noted, in passing, that young students and
speakers always select the most tremendous subjects for their discourses. One
advances in modesty as one advances in knowledge, and after eighteen years of
platform work, I am far more dubious than I was at their beginning as to my
power of dealing in any sense adequately with the problems of life.) The
Dialectical Society had for some years held their meetings in a room in Adam
Street, rented from the Social Science Association. When the members gathered as
usual on February 17th, the door was found to be locked, and they had to gather
on the stairs; they found that "Ajax's" as yet undelivered paper was too much
for Social Science nerves, and that entrance to their ordinary meeting-room was
then and thenceforth denied them. So they, with "Ajax," found refuge at the
Charing Cross Hotel, and speculated merrily on the eccentricities of religious
bigotry.
214.
On February
12th I started on my first provincial lecturing tour, and after speaking at
Birkenhead that evening went on by the night mail to Glasgow. Some races—dog
races—I think, had been going on, and very unpleasant were many of the
passengers waiting on the platform. Some Birkenhead friends had secured me a
compartment, and watched over me till the train began to move. Then, after we
had fairly started, the door was flung open by a porter, and a man was thrust in
who half tumbled on to the seat. As he slowly recovered he stood up, and as his
money rolled out of his hand on to the floor, and he gazed vaguely at it, I saw
to my horror that he was drunk. The position was not pleasant, for the train was
an express, and was not timed to stop for a considerable time. My odious
fellow-passenger spent some time on the floor, hunting after his scattered
coins; then he slowly gathered himself up and presently became conscious of my
presence. He studied me for some time, and then proposed to shut the window. I
assented quietly, not wanting to discuss a trifle and feeling in deadly
terror—alone at night in an express with a man not drunk enough to be helpless,
but too drunk to be controlled. Never before nor since have I felt so thoroughly
frightened. I can see him still, swaying as he stood, with eyes bleared and
pendulous lips—but I sat there quiet and outwardly unmoved, as is always my
impulse in danger till I see some way of escape, only grasping a penknife in my
pocket, with a desperate resolve to use my feeble weapon as soon as the need
arose. The man came towards me with a fatuous leer, when a jarring noise was
heard and the train began to slacken.
215.
"What is
that?" stammered my drunken companion.
216.
"They are
putting on the brakes to stop the train," I answered very slowly and distinctly,
though a very passion of relief made it hard to say quietly the measured words.
217.
The man sat
down stupidly, staring at me, and in a minute or two the train pulled up at a
station—it had been stopped by signal. My immobility was gone. In a moment I was
at the window, called the guard, and explained rapidly that I was a woman
travelling alone, and that a half-drunken man was in the carriage. With the
usual kindness of a railway official, he at once moved me and my baggage into
another compartment, into which he locked me, and he kept a friendly watch over
me at every station at which we stopped until he landed me safely at Glasgow.
218.
At Glasgow a
room had been taken for me at a temperance hotel, and it seemed to me so new and
lonely a thing to be "all on my own account" in a strange hotel in a strange
city, that I wanted to sit down and cry. This feeling, to which I was too proud
to yield, was probably partly due to the extreme greyness and grubbiness of my
surroundings. Things are better now, but in those days temperance hotels were
for the most part lacking in cleanliness. Abstinence from alcohol and a
superfluity of "matter in the wrong place" do not seem necessary correlatives,
yet I rarely went to a temperance hotel in which water was liberally used for
other purposes than that of drinking. From Glasgow I went north to Aberdeen,
where I found a very stern and critical audience. Not a sound broke the
stillness as I walked up the hall; not a sound as I ascended the platform and
faced the people; the canny Scot was not going to applaud a stranger at sight;
he was going to see what she was like first. In grim silence they listened; I
could not move them; they were granite like their own granite city, and I felt I
would like to take off my head and throw it at them, if only to break that hard
wall. After about twenty minutes, a fortunate phrase drew a hiss from some child
of the Covenanters. I made a quick retort, there was a burst of cheering, and
the granite vanished. Never after that did I have to complain of the coldness of
an Aberdeen audience. Back to London from Aberdeen, and a long, weary journey it
was, in a third-class carriage in the cold month of February; but the labour had
in it a joy that outpaid all physical discomfort, and the feeling that I had
found my work in the world gave a new happiness to life.
219.
On February
28th I stood for the first time on the platform of the Hall of Science, Old
Street, St. Luke's, London, and was received with that warmth of greeting which
Secularists are always so ready to extend to any who sacrifice aught to join
their ranks. That hall is identified in my mind with many a bitter struggle,
with both victory and defeat, but whether in victory or in defeat I found there
always welcome; and the love and the courage wherewith Secularists stood by me
have overpaid a thousandfold any poor services I was fortunate enough to render,
while in their ranks, to the cause of Liberty, and wholly prevent any bitterness
arising in my mind for any unfriendliness shown me by some, who have perhaps
overstepped kindness and justice in their sorrowful wrath at my renunciation of
Materialism and Atheism. So far as health was concerned, the lecturing acted as
a tonic. My chest had always been a little delicate, and when I consulted a
doctor on the possibility of my standing platform work, he answered, "It will
either kill you or cure you." It entirely cured the lung weakness, and I grew
strong and vigorous instead of being frail and delicate, as of old.
220.
It would be
wearisome to go step by step over eighteen years of platform work, so I will
only select here and there incidents illustrative of the whole. And here let me
say that the frequent attacks made on myself and others, that we were attracted
to Free-thought propaganda by the gains it offered, formed a somewhat grotesque
contrast to the facts. On one occasion I spent eight days in Northumberland and
Durham, gave twelve lectures, and made a deficit of eleven shillings on the
whole. Of course such a thing could not happen in later years, when I had made
my name by sheer hard work, but I fancy that every Secularist lecturer could
tell of similar experiences in the early days of "winning his way." The fact is
that from Mr. Bradlaugh downwards every one of us could have earned a competence
with comparative ease in any other line of work, and could have earned it with
public approval instead of amid popular reproach. Much of my early lecturing was
done in Northumberland and Durham; the miners there are, as a rule, shrewd and
hard-headed men, and very cordial is the greeting given by them to those they
have reason to trust. At Seghill and at Bedlington I have slept in their
cottages and have been welcomed to their tables, and I have a vivid memory of
one evening at Seghill, after a lecture, when my host, himself a miner, invited
about a dozen of his comrades to supper to meet me; the talk ran on politics,
and I soon found that my companions knew more of English politics, had a far
shrewder notion of political methods, and were, therefore, much better worth
talking to, than most of the ordinary men met at dinner parties "in society."
They were of the "uneducated" class despised by "gentlemen," and had not then
the franchise, but politically they were far better educated than their social
superiors, and were far better fitted to discharge the duties of citizenship.
How well, too, do I remember a ten-mile drive in a butcher's cart, to give a
lecture in an out-of-the-way spot, unapproached by railway. Such was the jolting
as we rattled over rough roads and stony places, that I felt as though all my
bones were broken, and as though I should collapse on the platform like a bag
half-filled with stones. How kind they were to me, those genial, cordial miners,
how careful for my comfort, and how motherly were the women! Ah! if opponents of
my views who did not know me were often cruel and malignant, there was
compensation in the love and honour in which good men and women all the country
over held me, and their devotion outweighed the hatred, and many a time and
often soothed a weary and aching heart.
221.
Lecturing in
June, 1875, at Leicester, I came for the first time across a falsehood that
brought sore trouble and cost me more pain than I care to tell. An irate
Christian opponent, in the discussion that followed the lecture, declared that I
was responsible for a book entitled, "The Elements of Social Science," which
was, he averred, "The Bible of Secularists." I had never heard of the book, but
as he stated that it was in favour of the abolition of marriage, and that Mr.
Bradlaugh agreed with it, I promptly contradicted him; for while I knew nothing
about the book, I knew a great deal about Mr. Bradlaugh, and I knew that on the
marriage question he was conservative rather than revolutionary. He detested
"Free Love" doctrines, and had thrown himself strongly on the side of the
agitation led so heroically for many years by Mrs. Josephine Butler. On my
return to London after the lecture I naturally made inquiry as to the volume and
its contents, and I found that it had been written by a Doctor of Medicine some
years before, and sent to the National Reformer for review, as to other
journals, in ordinary course of business. It consisted of three parts—the first
advocated, from the standpoint of medical science, what is roughly known as
"Free Love"; the second was entirely medical; the third consisted of a clear and
able exposition of the law of population as laid down by the Rev. Mr. Malthus,
and—following the lines of John Stuart Mill—insisted that it was the duty of
married persons to voluntarily limit their families within their means of
subsistence. Mr. Bradlaugh, in reviewing the book, said that it was written
"with honest and pure intent and purpose," and recommended to working men the
exposition of the law of population. His enemies took hold of this
recommendation, declared that he shared the author's views on the impermanence
of the marriage tie, and, despite his reiterated contradictions, they used
extracts against marriage from the book as containing his views. Anything more
meanly vile it would be difficult to conceive, but such were the weapons used
against him all his life, and used often by men whose own lives contrasted most
unfavourably with his own. Unable to find anything in his own writings to serve
their purpose, they used this book to damage him with those who knew nothing at
first-hand of his views. What his enemies feared were not his views on
marriage—which, as I have said, was conservative—but his Radicalism and his
Atheism. To discredit him as politician they maligned him socially, and the idea
that a man desires "to abolish marriage and the home," is a most convenient
poniard, and the one most certain to wound. This was the origin of his worst
difficulties, to be intensified, ere long, by his defence of Malthusianism. On
me also fell the same lash, and I found myself held up to hatred as upholder of
views that I abhorred.
222.
I may add
that far warmer praise than that bestowed on this book by Mr. Bradlaugh was
given by other writers, who were never attacked in the same way.
223.
In the
Reasoner, edited by Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, I find warmer praise of it
than in the National Reformer; in the review the following passage
appears:—
224.
"In some
respects all books of this class are evils: but it would be weakness and
criminal prudery—a prudery as criminal as vice itself—not to say that such a
book as the one in question is not only a far lesser evil than the one that it
combats, but in one sense a book which it is a mercy to issue and courage to
publish."
225.
The
Examiner, reviewing the same book, declared it to be—
226.
"A very
valuable, though rather heterogeneous book.... This is, we believe, the only
book that has fully, honestly, and in a scientific spirit recognised all the
elements in the problem—How are mankind to triumph over poverty, with its train
of attendant evils?—and fearlessly endeavoured to find a practical solution."
227.
The
British Journal of Homoeopathy wrote:—
228.
"Though quite
out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain from stating that this
work is unquestionably the most remarkable one, in many respects, we have ever
met with. Though we differ toto coelo from the author in his views of
religion and morality, and hold some of his remedies to tend rather to a
dissolution than a reconstruction of society, yet we are bound to admit the
benevolence and philanthropy of his motives. The scope of the work is nothing
less than the whole field of political economy."
229.
Ernest Jones
and others wrote yet more strongly, but out of all these Charles Bradlaugh alone
has been selected for reproach, and has had the peculiar views of the anonymous
author fathered on himself.
230.
Some of the
lecture work in those days was pretty rough. In Darwen, Lancashire, in June,
1875, stone-throwing was regarded as a fair argument addressed to the Atheist
lecturer. At Swansea, in March, 1876, the fear of violence was so great that a
guarantee against damage to the hall was exacted by the proprietor, and no local
friend had the courage to take the chair for me. In September, 1876, at Hoyland,
thanks to the exertions of Mr. Hebblethwaite, a Primitive Methodist, and two
Protestant missionaries, I found the hall packed with a crowd that yelled at me
with great vigour, stood on forms, shook fists at me, and otherwise showed
feelings more warm than friendly. Taking advantage of a lull in the noise, I
began to speak, and the tumult sank into quietness; but as I was leaving the
hall it broke out afresh, and I walked slowly through a crowd that yelled and
swore and struck at me, but somehow those nearest always shrank back and let me
pass. In the dark, outside the hall, they took to kicking, but only one kick
reached me, and the attempts to overturn the cab were foiled by the driver, who
put his horse at a gallop. Later in the same month Mr. Bradlaugh and I visited
Congleton together, having been invited there by Mr. and Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy.
Mr. Bradlaugh lectured on the first evening to an accompaniment of broken
windows, and I, sitting with Mrs. Elmy facing the platform, received a rather
heavy blow on the back of the head from a stone thrown by some one in the room.
We had a mile and a half to walk from the hall to the house, and were
accompanied all the way by a stone-throwing crowd, who sang hymns at the tops of
their voices, with interludes of curses and foul words. On the following evening
I lectured, and our stone-throwing admirers escorted us to the hall; in the
middle of the lecture a man shouted, "Put her out!" and a well-known wrestler of
the neighbourhood, named Burbery, who had come to the hall with some friends to
break up the meeting, stood up as at a signal in front of the platform and
loudly interrupted. Mr. Bradlaugh, who was in the chair, told him to sit down,
and, as he persisted in interrupting, informed him that he must either be quiet
or go out. "Put me out!" shouted Mr. Burbery, striking an attitude. Mr.
Bradlaugh left the platform and walked up to the noisy swashbuckler, who at once
grappled with him and tried to throw him. But Mr. Burbery had not reckoned on
the massive strength of his opponent, and when the "throw" was complete Mr.
Burbery was underneath. Amid much excitement Mr. Burbery was propelled towards
the door, being gently used on the way as a battering-ram against his friends
who rushed to the rescue, and at the door was handed over to the police. The
chairman then resumed his normal duties, with a brief "Go on" to me, and I
promptly went on, finishing the lecture in peace. But outside the hall there was
plenty of stone-throwing, and Mrs. Elmy received a cut on the temple from a
flint. This stormy work gradually lessened, and my experience of it was a mere
trifle compared to that which my predecessors had faced. Mr. Bradlaugh's early
experiences involved much serious rioting, and Mrs. Harriet Law, a woman of much
courage and of strong natural ability, had many a rough meeting in her lecturing
days.
231.
In September,
1875, Mr. Bradlaugh again sailed for America, still to earn money there to pay
his debts. Unhappily he was struck down by typhoid fever, and all his hopes of
freeing himself thus were destroyed. His life was well-nigh despaired of, but
the admirable skill of physician and nurse pulled him through. Said the
Baltimore Advertiser:—
232.
"This long
and severe illness has disappointed the hopes and retarded the object for which
he came to this country; but he is gentleness and patience itself in his
sickness in this strange land, and has endeared himself greatly to his
physicians and attendants by his gratitude and appreciation of the slightest
attention."
233.
His fortitude
in face of death was also much commented on, lying there as he did far from home
and from all he loved best. Never a quiver of fear touched him as he walked down
into the valley of the shadow of death; the Rev. Mr. Frothingham bore public and
admiring testimony in his own church to Mr. Bradlaugh's noble serenity, at once
fearless and unpretending, and, himself a Theist, gave willing witness to the
Atheist's calm strength. He came back to us at the end of September, worn to a
shadow, weak as a child, and for many a long month he bore the traces of his
wrestle with death.
234.
One part of
my autumn's work during his absence was the delivery and subsequent publication
of six lectures on the French Revolution. That stormy time had for me an intense
fascination. I brooded over it, dreamed over it, and longed to tell the story
from the people's point of view. I consequently read a large amount of the
current literature of the time, as well as Louis Blanc's monumental work and the
histories of Michelet, Lamartine, and others. Fortunately for me, Mr. Bradlaugh
had a splendid collection of books on the subject, and ere we left England he
brought me two cabs-full of volumes, aristocratic, ecclesiastical, democratic,
and I studied all these diligently, and lived in them, till the French
Revolution became to me as a drama in which I had myself taken part, and the
actors were to me as personal friends and foes. In this, again, as in so much of
my public work, I have to thank Mr. Bradlaugh for the influence which led me to
read fully all sides of a question, and to read most carefully those from which
I differed most, ere I considered myself competent to write or to speak thereon.
From 1875 onwards I held office as one of the vice-presidents of the National
Secular Society—a society founded on a broad basis of liberty, with the
inspiring motto, "We Search for Truth." Mr. Bradlaugh was president, and I held
office under him till he resigned his post in February, 1890, nine months after
I had joined the Theosophical Society. The N.S.S., under his judicious and
far-sighted leadership, became a real force in the country, theologically and
politically, embracing large numbers of men and women who were Freethinkers as
well as Radicals, and forming a nucleus of earnest workers, able to gather round
them still larger numbers of others, and thus to powerfully affect public
opinion. Once a year the society met in conference, and many a strong and
lasting friendship between men living far apart dated from these yearly
gatherings, so that all over the country spread a net-work of comradeship
between the staunch followers of "our Charlie." These were the men and women who
paid his election expenses over and over again, supported him in his
Parliamentary struggle, came up to London to swell the demonstrations in his
favour. And round them grew up a huge party—"the largest personal following of
any public man since Mr. Gladstone," it was once said by an eminent man—who
differed from him in theology, but passionately supported him in politics;
miners, cutlers, weavers, spinners, shoemakers, operatives of every trade,
strong, sturdy, self-reliant men who loved him to the last.
(1) CHAPTER IX.
235.
THE KNOWLTON
PAMPHLET.
236.
The year 1877
dawned, and in its early days began a struggle which, ending in victory all
along the line, brought with it pain and anguish that I scarcely care to recall.
An American physician, Dr. Charles Knowlton, convinced of the truth of the
teaching of the Rev. Mr. Malthus, and seeing that that teaching had either no
practical value or tended to the great increase of prostitution, unless married
people were taught to limit their families within their means of
livelihood—wrote a pamphlet on the voluntary limitation of the family. It was
published somewhere in the Thirties—about 1835, I think—and was sold
unchallenged in England as well as in America for some forty years. Philosophers
of the Bentham school, like John Stuart Mill, endorsed its teachings, and the
bearing of population on poverty was an axiom in economic literature. Dr.
Knowlton's work was a physiological treatise, advocating conjugal prudence and
parental responsibility; it argued in favour of early marriage, with a view to
the purity of social life; but as early marriage between persons of small means
generally implies a large family, leading either to pauperism or to lack of
necessary food, clothing, education, and fair start in life for the children,
Dr. Knowlton advocated the restriction of the number of the family within the
means of subsistence, and stated the methods by which this restriction could be
carried out. The book was never challenged till a disreputable Bristol
bookseller put some copies on sale to which he added some improper pictures, and
he was prosecuted and convicted. The publisher of the National Reformer
and of Mr. Bradlaugh's and my books and pamphlets had taken over a stock of
Knowlton's pamphlets among other literature he bought, and he was prosecuted
and, to our great dismay, pleaded guilty. We at once removed our publishing from
his hands, and after careful deliberation we decided to publish the incriminated
pamphlet in order to test the right of discussion on the population question,
when, with the advice to limit the family, information was given as to how that
advice could be followed. We took a little shop, printed the pamphlet, and sent
notice to the police that we would commence the sale at a certain day and hour,
and ourselves sell the pamphlet, so that no one else might be endangered by our
action. We resigned our offices in the National Secular Society that we might
not injure the society, but the executive first, and then the Annual Conference,
refused to accept the resignations. Our position as regarded the pamphlet was
simple and definite; had it been brought to us for publication, we stated, we
should not have published it, for it was not a treatise of high merit; but,
prosecuted as immoral because it advised the limitation of the family, it at
once embodied the right of publication. In a preface to the republished edition,
we wrote:—
237.
"We republish
this pamphlet, honestly believing that on all questions affecting the happiness
of the people, whether they be theological, political, or social, fullest right
of free discussion ought to be maintained at all hazards. We do not personally
endorse all that Dr. Knowlton says: his 'Philosophical Proem' seems to us full
of philosophical mistakes, and—as we are neither of us doctors—we are not
prepared to endorse his medical views; but since progress can only be made
through discussion, and no discussion is possible where differing opinions are
suppressed, we claim the right to publish all opinions, so that the public,
enabled to see all sides of a question, may have the materials for forming a
sound judgment."
238.
We were not
blind to the danger to which this defiance of the authorities exposed us, but it
was not the danger of failure, with the prison as penalty, that gave us pause.
It was the horrible misconceptions that we saw might arise; the odious
imputations on honour and purity that would follow. Could we, the teachers of a
lofty morality, venture to face a prosecution for publishing what would be
technically described as an obscene book, and risk the ruin of our future,
dependent as that was on our fair fame? To Mr. Bradlaugh it meant, as he felt,
the almost certain destruction of his Parliamentary position, the forging by his
own hands of a weapon that in the hands of his foes would be well-nigh fatal. To
me it meant the loss of the pure reputation I prized, the good name I had
guarded—scandal the most terrible a woman could face. But I had seen the misery
of the poor, of my sister-women with children crying for bread; the wages of the
workmen were often sufficient for four, but eight or ten they could not
maintain. Should I set my own safety, my own good name, against the helping of
these? Did it matter that my reputation should be ruined, if its ruin helped to
bring remedy to this otherwise hopeless wretchedness of thousands? What was
worth all my talk about self-sacrifice and self-surrender, if, brought to the
test, I failed? So, with heart aching but steady, I came to my resolution; and
though I know now that I was wrong intellectually, and blundered in the remedy,
I was right morally in the will to sacrifice all to help the poor, and I can
rejoice that I faced a storm of obloquy fiercer and harder to bear than any
other which can ever touch me again. I learned a lesson of stern indifference to
all judgments from without that were not endorsed by condemnation from within.
The long suffering that followed was a splendid school for the teaching of
endurance.
239.
The day
before the pamphlet was put on sale we ourselves delivered copies to the Chief
Clerk of the Magistrates at Guildhall, to the officer in charge at the City
Police Office in Old Jewry, and to the Solicitor for the City of London. With
each pamphlet was a notice that we would attend and sell the book from 4 to 5
p.m. on the following day, Saturday, March 24th. This we accordingly did, and in
order to save trouble we offered to attend daily at the shop from 10 to 11 a.m.
to facilitate our arrest, should the authorities determine to prosecute. The
offer was readily accepted, and after some little delay—during which a
deputation from the Christian Evidence Society waited upon Mr. Cross to urge the
Tory Government to prosecute us—warrants were issued against us and we were
arrested on April 6th. Letters of approval and encouragement came from the most
diverse quarters, including among their writers General Garibaldi, the
well-known economist, Yves Guyot, the great French constitutional lawyer, Emile
Acollas, together with letters literally by the hundred from poor men and women
thanking and blessing us for the stand taken. Noticeable were the numbers of
letters from clergymen's wives, and wives of ministers of all denominations.
240.
After our
arrest we were taken to the police-station in Bridewell Place, and thence to the
Guildhall, where Alderman Figgins was sitting, before whom we duly appeared,
while in the back of the court waited what an official described as "a regular
waggon-load of bail." We were quickly released, the preliminary investigation
being fixed for ten days later—April 17th. At the close of the day the
magistrate released us on our own recognisances, without bail; and it was so
fully seen on all sides that we were fighting for a principle that no bail was
asked for during the various stages of the trial. Two days later we were
committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court, but Mr. Bradlaugh moved for a
writ of certiorari to remove the trial to the Court of Queen's Bench;
Lord Chief Justice Cockburn said he would grant the writ if "upon looking at it
(the book), we think its object is the legitimate one of promoting knowledge on
a matter of human interest," but not if the science were only a cover for
impurity, and he directed that copies of the book should be handed in for
perusal by himself and Mr. Justice Mellor. Having read the book they granted the
writ.
241.
The trial
commenced on June 18th before the Lord Chief Justice of England and a special
jury, Sir Hardinge Giffard, the Solicitor-General of the Tory Government,
leading against us, and we defending ourselves. The Lord Chief Justice "summed
up strongly for an acquittal," as a morning paper said; he declared that "a more
ill-advised and more injudicious proceeding in the way of a prosecution was
probably never brought into a court of justice," and described us as "two
enthusiasts who have been actuated by a desire to do good in a particular
department of society." He then went on to a splendid statement of the law of
population, and ended by praising our straightforwardness and asserting
Knowlton's honesty of intention. Every one in court thought that we had won our
case, but they had not taken into account the religious and political hatred
against us and the presence on the jury of such men as Mr. Walter, of the
Times. After an hour and thirty-five minutes of delay the verdict was a
compromise: "We are unanimously of opinion that the book in question is
calculated to deprave public morals, but at the same time we entirely exonerate
the defendants from any corrupt motive in publishing it." The Lord Chief Justice
looked troubled, and said that he should have to translate the verdict into one
of guilty, and on that some of the jury turned to leave the box, it having been
agreed—we heard later from one of them—that if the verdict were not accepted in
that form they should retire again, as six of the jury were against convicting
us; but the foreman, who was bitterly hostile, jumped at the chance of snatching
a conviction, and none of those in our favour had the courage to contradict him
on the spur of the moment, so the foreman's "Guilty" passed, and the judge set
us free, on Mr. Bradlaugh's recognisances to come up for judgment that day week.
242.
On that day
we moved to quash the indictment and for a new trial, partly on a technical
ground and partly on the ground that the verdict, having acquitted us of wrong
motive, was in our favour, not against us. On this the Court did not agree with
us, holding that the part of the indictment alleging corrupt motive was
superfluous. Then came the question of sentence, and on this the Lord Chief
Justice did his best to save us; we were acquitted of any intent to violate the
law; would we submit to the verdict of the jury and promise not to sell the
book? No, we would not; we claimed the right to sell, and meant to vindicate it.
The judge pleaded, argued, finally got angry with us, and, at last, compelled to
pass sentence, he stated that if we would have yielded he would have let us go
free without penalty, but that as we would set ourselves against the law, break
it and defy it—a sore offence from the judge's point of view—he could only pass
a heavy sentence on each of six months' imprisonment, a fine of £200, and
recognisances of £500 for two years, and this, as he again repeated, upon the
assumption "that they do intend to set the law at defiance." Even despite this
he made us first-class misdemeanants. Then, as Mr. Bradlaugh stated that we
should move for a writ of error, he liberated us on Mr. Bradlaugh's recognisance
for £100, the queerest comment on his view of the case and of our characters,
since we were liable jointly to £1,400 under the sentence, to say nothing of the
imprisonment. But prison and money penalties vanished into thin air, for the
writ of error was granted, proved successful, and the verdict was quashed.
243.
Then ensued a
somewhat anxious time. We were resolute to continue selling; were our opponents
equally resolved to prosecute us? We could not tell. I wrote a pamphlet entitled
"The Law of Population," giving the arguments which had convinced me of its
truth, the terrible distress and degradation entailed on families by
overcrowding and the lack of the necessaries of life, pleading for early
marriages that prostitution might be destroyed, and limitation of the family
that pauperism might be avoided; finally, giving the information which rendered
early marriage without these evils possible. This pamphlet was put in
circulation as representing our view of the subject, and we again took up the
sale of Knowlton's. Mr. Bradlaugh carried the war into the enemy's country, and
commenced an action against the police for the recovery of some pamphlets they
had seized; he carried the action to a successful issue, recovered the
pamphlets, bore them off in triumph, and we sold them all with an inscription
across them, "Recovered from the police." We continued the sale of Knowlton's
tract for some time, until we received an intimation that no further prosecution
would be attempted, and on this we at once dropped its publication, substituting
for it my "Law of Population."
244.
But the worst
part of the fight, for me, was to come. Prosecution of the "Law of Population"
was threatened, but never commenced; a worse weapon against me was in store. An
attempt had been made in August, 1875, to deprive me of the custody of my little
girl by hiding her away when she went on her annual visit of one month to her
father, but I had promptly recovered her by threatening to issue a writ of
habeas corpus. Now it was felt that the Knowlton trial might be added to the
charges of blasphemy that could be urged against me, and that this
double-barrelled gun might be discharged with effect. I received notice in
January, 1878, that an application was to be made to the High Court of Chancery
to deprive me of the child, but the petition was not filed till the following
April. Mabel was dangerously ill with scarlet fever at the time, and though this
fact was communicated to her father I received a copy of the petition while
sitting at her bedside. The petition alleged that, "The said Annie Besant is, by
addresses, lectures, and writings, endeavouring to propagate the principles of
Atheism, and has published a book entitled 'The Gospel of Atheism.' She has also
associated herself with an infidel lecturer and author named Charles Bradlaugh
in giving lectures and in publishing books and pamphlets, whereby the truth of
the Christian religion is impeached, and disbelief in all religion inculcated."
245.
It further
alleged against me the publication of the Knowlton pamphlet, and the writing of
the "Law of Population." Unhappily, the petition came for hearing before the
then Master of the Rolls, Sir George Jessel, a man animated by the old spirit of
Hebrew bigotry, to which he had added the time-serving morality of a "man of the
world," sceptical as to all sincerity, and contemptuous of all devotion to an
unpopular cause. The treatment I received at his hands on my first appearance in
court told me what I had to expect. I had already had some experience of English
judges, the stately kindness and gentleness of the Lord Chief Justice, the
perfect impartiality and dignified courtesy of the Lords Justices of Appeal. My
astonishment, then, can be imagined when, in answer to a statement by Mr. Ince,
Q.C., that I appeared in person, I heard a harsh, loud voice exclaim:
246.
"Appear in
person? A lady appear in person? Never heard of such a thing! Does the lady
really appear in person?"
247.
As the London
papers had been full of my appearing in person in the other courts and had
contained the high compliments of the Lord Chief Justice on my conduct of my own
case, Sir George Jessel's pretended astonishment seemed a little overdone. After
a variety of similar remarks delivered in the most grating tones and in the
roughest manner, Sir George Jessel tried to obtain his object by browbeating me
directly. "Is this the lady?"
248.
"I am the
respondent, my lord, Mrs. Besant."
249.
"Then I
advise you, Mrs. Besant, to employ counsel to represent you, if you can afford
it; and I suppose you can."
250.
"With all
submission to your lordship, I am afraid I must claim my right of arguing my
case in person."
251.
"You will do
so if you please, of course, but I think you had much better appear by counsel.
I give you notice that, if you do not, you must not expect to be shown any
consideration. You will not be heard by me at any greater length than the case
requires, nor allowed to go into irrelevant matter, as persons who argue their
own cases usually do."
252.
"I trust I
shall not do so, my lord; but in any case I shall be arguing under your
lordship's complete control."
253.
This
encouraging beginning may be taken as a sample of the case—it was one long fight
against clever counsel, aided by a counsel instead of a judge on the bench. Only
once did judge and counsel fall out. Mr. Ince and Mr. Bardswell had been arguing
that my Atheism and Malthusianism made me an unfit guardian for my child; Mr.
Ince declared that Mabel, educated by me, would "be helpless for good in this
world," and "hopeless for good hereafter, outcast in this life and damned in the
next." Mr. Bardswell implored the judge to consider that my custody of her
"would be detrimental to the future prospects of the child in society, to say
nothing of her eternal prospects." Had not the matter been to me of such
heart-breaking importance, I could have laughed at the mixture of Mrs. Grundy,
marriage establishment, and hell, presented as an argument for robbing a mother
of her child. But Mr. Bardswell carelessly forgot that Sir George Jessel was a
Jew, and lifting eyes to heaven in horrified appeal, he gasped out:
254.
"Your
lordship, I think, will scarcely credit it, but Mrs. Besant says, in a later
affidavit, that she took away the Testament from the child because it contained
coarse passages unfit for a child to read."
255.
The
opportunity was too tempting for a Jew to refrain from striking at a book
written by apostate Jews, and Sir George Jessel answered sharply:
256.
"It is not
true to say there are no passages unfit for a child's reading, because I think
there are a great many."
257.
"I do not
know of any passages that could fairly be called coarse."
258.
"I cannot
quite assent to that."
259.
Barring this
little episode judge and counsel showed a charming unanimity. I distinctly said
I was an Atheist, that I had withdrawn the child from religious instruction at
the day-school she attended, that I had written various anti-Christian books,
and so on; but I claimed the child's custody on the ground that the deed of
separation distinctly gave it to me, and had been executed by her father after I
had left the Christian Church, and that my opinions were not sufficient to
invalidate it. It was admitted on the other side that the child was admirably
cared for, and there was no attempt at attacking my personal character. The
judge stated that I had taken the greatest possible care of the child, but
decided that the mere fact of my refusing to give the child religious
instruction was sufficient ground for depriving me of her custody. Secular
education he regarded as "not only reprehensible, but detestable, and likely to
work utter ruin to the child, and I certainly should upon this ground alone
decide that this child ought not to remain another day under the care of her
mother."
260.
Sir George
Jessel denounced also my Malthusian views in a fashion at once so brutal and so
untruthful as to facts, that some years later another judge, the senior puisne
judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, declared in a judgment delivered
in his own court that there was "no language used by Lord Cockburn which
justified the Master of the Rolls in assuming that Lord Cockburn regarded the
book as obscene," and that "little weight is to be attached to his opinion on a
point not submitted for his decision"; he went on to administer a sharp rebuke
for the way in which Sir George Jessel travelled outside the case, and remarked
that "abuse, however, of an unpopular opinion, whether indulged in by judges or
other people, is not argument, nor can the vituperation of opponents in opinion
prove them to be immoral." However, Sir George Jessel was all-powerful in his
own court, and he deprived me of my child, refusing to stay the order even until
the hearing of my appeal against his decision. A messenger from the father came
to my house, and the little child was carried away by main force, shrieking and
struggling, still weak from the fever, and nearly frantic with fear and
passionate resistance. No access to her was given me, and I gave notice that if
access were denied me, I would sue for a restitution of conjugal rights, merely
that I might see my children. But the strain had been too great, and I nearly
went mad, spending hours pacing up and down the empty rooms, striving to weary
myself to exhaustion that I might forget. The loneliness and silence of the
house, of which my darling had always been the sunshine and the music, weighed
on me like an evil dream; I listened for the patter of the dancing feet, and
merry, thrilling laughter that rang through the garden, the sweet music of the
childish voice; during my sleepless nights I missed in the darkness the soft
breathing of the little child; each morning I longed in vain for the clinging
arms and soft, sweet kisses. At last health broke down, and fever struck me, and
mercifully gave me the rest of pain and delirium instead of the agony of
conscious loss. Through that terrible illness, day after day, Mr. Bradlaugh came
to me, and sat writing beside me, feeding me with ice and milk, refused from all
others, and behaving more like a tender mother than a man friend; he saved my
life, though it seemed to me for awhile of little value, till the first months
of lonely pain were over. When recovered, I took steps to set aside an order
obtained by Mr. Besant during my illness, forbidding me to bring any suit
against him, and even the Master of the Rolls, on hearing that all access had
been denied to me, and the money due to me stopped, uttered words of strong
condemnation of the way in which I had been treated. Finally the deed of
separation executed in 1873 was held to be good as protecting Mr. Besant from
any suit brought by me, whether for divorce or for restitution of conjugal
rights, while the clauses giving me the custody of the child were set aside. The
Court of Appeal in April, 1879, upheld the decision, the absolute right of the
father as against a married mother being upheld. This ignoring of all right to
her children on the part of the married mother is a scandal and a wrong that has
since been redressed by Parliament, and the husband has no longer in his grasp
this instrument of torture, whose power to agonise depends on the tenderness and
strength of the motherliness of the wife. In the days when the law took my child
from me, it virtually said to all women: "Choose which of these two positions,
as wife and mother, you will occupy. If you are legally your husband's wife, you
can have no legal claim to your children; if legally you are your husband's
mistress, your rights as mother are secure." That stigma on marriage is now
removed.
261.
One thing I
gained in the Court of Appeal. The Court expressed a strong view as to my right
of access, and directed me to apply to Sir George Jessel for it, adding that it
could not doubt he would grant it. Under cover of this I applied to the Master
of the Rolls, and obtained liberal access to the children; but I found that my
visits kept Mabel in a continual state of longing and fretting for me, while the
ingenious forms of petty insult that were devised against me and used in the
children's presence would soon become palpable to them and cause continual pain.
So, after a painful struggle with myself, I resolved to give up the right of
seeing them, feeling that thus only could I save them from constantly recurring
conflict, destructive of all happiness and of all respect for one or the other
parent. Resolutely I turned my back on them that I might spare them trouble, and
determined that, robbed of my own, I would be a mother to all helpless children
I could aid, and cure the pain at my own heart by soothing the pain of others.
262.
As far as
regards this whole struggle over the Knowlton pamphlet, victory was finally won
all along the line. Not only did we, as related, recover all our seized
pamphlets, and continue the sale till all prosecution and threat of prosecution
were definitely surrendered; but my own tract had an enormous sale, so that when
I withdrew it from sale in June, 1891, I was offered a large sum for the
copyright, an offer which I, of course, refused. Since that time not a copy has
been sold with my knowledge or permission, but long ere that the pamphlet had
received a very complete legal vindication. For while it circulated untouched in
England, a prosecution was attempted against it in New South Wales, but was put
an end to by an eloquent and luminous judgment by the senior puisne judge of the
Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Windmeyer, in December, 1888. This judge, the most
respected in the great Australian colony, spoke out plainly and strongly on the
morality of such teaching. "Take the case," he said, "of a woman married to a
drunken husband, steadily ruining his constitution and hastening to the
drunkard's doom, loss of employment for himself, semi-starvation for his family,
and finally death, without a shilling to leave those whom he has brought into
the world, but armed with the authority of the law to treat his wife as his
slave, ever brutally insisting on the indulgence of his marital rights. Where is
the immorality, if, already broken in health from unresting maternity, having
already a larger family than she can support when the miserable breadwinner has
drunk himself to death, the woman avails herself of the information given in
this book, and so averts the consequences of yielding to her husband's brutal
insistence on his marital rights? Already weighted with a family that she is
unable to decently bring up, the immorality, it seems to me, would be in the
reckless and criminal disregard of precautions which would prevent her bringing
into the world daughters whose future outlook as a career would be prostitution,
or sons whose inherited taint of alcoholism would soon drag them down with their
sisters to herd with the seething mass of degenerate and criminal humanity that
constitutes the dangerous classes of great cities. In all these cases the appeal
is from thoughtless, unreasoning prejudice to conscience, and, if listened to,
its voice will be heard unmistakably indicating where the path of duty lies."
263.
The judge
forcibly refused to be any party to the prohibition of such a pamphlet,
regarding it as of high service to the community. He said: "So strong is the
dread of the world's censure upon this topic that few have the courage openly to
express their views upon it; and its nature is such that it is only amongst
thinkers who discuss all subjects, or amongst intimate acquaintances, that
community of thought upon the question is discovered. But let any one inquire
amongst those who have sufficient education and ability to think for themselves,
and who do not idly float, slaves to the current of conventional opinion, and he
will discover that numbers of men and women of purest lives, of noblest
aspirations, pious, cultivated, and refined, see no wrong in teaching the
ignorant that it is wrong to bring into the world children to whom they cannot
do justice, and who think it folly to stop short in telling them simply and
plainly how to prevent it. A more robust view of morals teaches that it is
puerile to ignore human passions and human physiology. A clearer perception of
truth and the safety of trusting to it teaches that in law, as in religion, it
is useless trying to limit the knowledge of mankind by any inquisitorial
attempts to place upon a judicial Index Expurgatorius works written with an
earnest purpose, and commending themselves to thinkers of well-balanced minds. I
will be no party to any such attempt. I do not believe that it was ever meant
that the Obscene Publication Act should apply to cases of this kind, but only to
the publication of such matter as all good men would regard as lewd and filthy,
to lewd and bawdy novels, pictures and exhibitions, evidently published and
given for lucre's sake. It could never have been intended to stifle the
expression of thought by the earnest-minded on a subject of transcendent
national importance like the present, and I will not strain it for that purpose.
As pointed out by Lord Cockburn in the case of the Queen v. Bradlaugh and
Besant, all prosecutions of this kind should be regarded as mischievous, even by
those who disapprove the opinions sought to be stifled, inasmuch as they only
tend more widely to diffuse the teaching objected to. To those, on the other
hand, who desire its promulgation, it must be a matter of congratulation that
this, like all attempted persecutions of thinkers, will defeat its own object,
and that truth, like a torch, 'the more it's shook it shines.'"
264.
The argument
of Mr. Justice Windmeyer for the Neo-Malthusian position was (as any one may see
who reads the full text of the judgment) one of the most luminous and cogent I
have ever read. The judgment was spoken of at the time in the English press as a
"brilliant triumph for Mrs. Besant," and so I suppose it was; but no legal
judgment could undo the harm wrought on the public mind in England by malignant
and persistent misrepresentation. What that trial and its results cost me in
pain no one but myself will ever know; on the other hand, there was the
passionate gratitude evidenced by letters from thousands of poor married
women—many from the wives of country clergymen and curates—thanking and blessing
me for showing them how to escape from the veritable hell in which they lived.
The "upper classes" of society know nothing about the way in which the poor
live; how their overcrowding destroys all sense of personal dignity, of modesty,
of outward decency, till human life, as Bishop Fraser justly said, is "degraded
below the level of the swine." To such, and among such I went, and I could not
grudge the price that then seemed to me as the ransom for their redemption. To
me, indeed, it meant the losing of all that made life dear, but for them it
seemed to be the gaining of all that gave hope of a better future. So how could
I hesitate—I whose heart had been fired by devotion to an ideal Humanity,
inspired by that Materialism that is of love and not of hate?
265.
And now, in
August, 1893, we find the Christian World, the representative organ of
orthodox Christian Protestantism, proclaiming the right and the duty of
voluntary limitation of the family. In a leading article, after a number of
letters had been inserted, it said:—
266.
"The
conditions are assuredly wrong which bring one member of the married partnership
into a bondage so cruel. It is no less evident that the cause of the bondage in
such cases lies in the too rapid multiplication of the family. There was a time
when any idea of voluntary limitation was regarded by pious people as
interfering with Providence. We are beyond that now, and have become capable of
recognising that Providence works through the common sense of individual brains.
We limit population just as much by deferring marriage from prudential motives
as by any action that may be taken after it.... Apart from certain methods of
limitation, the morality of which is gravely questioned by many, there are
certain easily-understood physiological laws of the subject, the failure to know
and to observe which is inexcusable on the part either of men or women in these
circumstances. It is worth noting in this connection that Dr. Billings, in his
article in this month's Forum, on the diminishing birth-rate of the
United States, gives as one of the reasons the greater diffusion of
intelligence, by means of popular and school treatises on physiology, than
formerly prevailed."
267.
Thus has
opinion changed in sixteen years, and all the obloquy poured on us is seen to
have been the outcome of ignorance and bigotry.
268.
As for the
children, what was gained by their separation from me? The moment they were old
enough to free themselves, they came back to me, my little girl's too brief stay
with me being ended by her happy marriage, and I fancy the fears expressed for
her eternal future will prove as groundless as the fears for her temporal ruin
have proved to be! Not only so, but both are treading in my steps as regards
their views of the nature and destiny of man, and have joined in their bright
youth the Theosophical Society to which, after so many struggles, I won my way.
269.
The struggle
on the right to discuss the prudential restraint of population did not, however,
conclude without a martyr. Mr. Edward Truelove, alluded to above, was prosecuted
for selling a treatise by Robert Dale Owen on "Moral Physiology," and a pamphlet
entitled, "Individual, Family, and National Poverty." He was tried on February
1, 1878, before the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of Queen's Bench, and was
most ably defended by Professor W.A. Hunter. The jury spent two hours in
considering their verdict, and returned into court and stated that they were
unable to agree. The majority of the jury were ready to convict, if they felt
sure that Mr. Truelove would not be punished, but one of them boldly declared in
court: "As to the book, it is written in plain language for plain people, and I
think that many more persons ought to know what the contents of the book are."
The jury was discharged, in consequence of this one man's courage, but Mr.
Truelove's persecutors—the Vice Society—were determined not to let their victim
free. They proceeded to trial a second time, and wisely endeavoured to secure a
special jury, feeling that as prudential restraint would raise wages by limiting
the supply of labour, they would be more likely to obtain a verdict from a jury
of "gentlemen" than from one composed of workers. This attempt was circumvented
by Mr. Truelove's legal advisers, who let a procedendo go which sent back
the trial to the Old Bailey. The second trial was held on May 16th at the
Central Criminal Court before Baron Pollock and a common jury, Professor Hunter
and Mr. J.M. Davidson appearing for the defence. The jury convicted, and the
brave old man, sixty-eight years of age, was condemned to four months'
imprisonment and £50 fine for selling a pamphlet which had been sold
unchallenged, during a period of forty-five years, by James Watson, George Jacob
Holyoake, Austin Holyoake, and Charles Watts. Mr. Grain, the counsel employed by
the Vice Society, most unfairly used against Mr. Truelove my "Law of
Population," a pamphlet which contained, Baron Pollock said, "the head and front
of the offence in the other [the Knowlton] case." I find an indignant protest
against this odious unfairness in the National Reformer for May 19th: "My
'Law of Population' was used against Mr. Truelove as an aggravation of his
offence, passing over the utter meanness—worthy only of Collette—of using
against a prisoner a book whose author has never been attacked for writing
it—does Mr. Collette, or do the authorities, imagine that the severity shown to
Mr. Truelove will in any fashion deter me from continuing the Malthusian
propaganda? Let me here assure them, one and all, that it will do nothing of the
kind; I shall continue to sell the 'Law of Population' and to advocate
scientific checks to population, just as though Mr. Collette and his Vice
Society were all dead and buried. In commonest justice they are bound to
prosecute me, and if they get, and keep, a verdict against me, and succeed in
sending me to prison, they will only make people more anxious to read my book,
and make me more personally powerful as a teacher of the views which they
attack."
270.
A persistent
attempt was made to obtain a writ of error in Mr. Truelove's case, but the Tory
Attorney-General, Sir John Holker, refused it, although the ground on which it
was asked was one of the grounds on which a similar writ had been granted to Mr.
Bradlaugh and myself. Mr. Truelove was therefore compelled to suffer his
sentence, but memorials, signed by 11,000 persons, asking for his release, were
sent to the Home Secretary from every part of the country, and a crowded meeting
in St. James's Hall, London, demanded his liberation with only six dissentients.
The whole agitation did not shorten Mr. Truelove's sentence by a single day, and
he was not released from Coldbath Fields Prison until September 5th. On the 12th
of the same month the Hall of Science was crowded with enthusiastic friends, who
assembled to do him honour, and he was presented with a beautifully-illuminated
address and a purse containing £177 (subsequent subscriptions raised the amount
to £197 16s. 6d.).
271.
It is
scarcely necessary to say that one of the results of the prosecution was a great
agitation throughout the country, and a wide popularisation of Malthusian views.
Some huge demonstrations were held in favour of free discussion; on one occasion
the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, was crowded to the doors; on another the Star
Music Hall, Bradford, was crammed in every corner; on another the Town Hall,
Birmingham, had not a seat or a bit of standing-room unoccupied. Wherever we
went, separately or together, it was the same story, and not only were
Malthusian lectures eagerly attended, and Malthusian literature eagerly bought,
but curiosity brought many to listen to our Radical and Freethought lectures,
and thousands heard for the first time what Secularism really meant. The Press,
both London and provincial, agreed in branding the prosecution as foolish, and
it was generally remarked that it resulted only in the wider circulation of the
indicted book, and the increased popularity of those who had stood for the right
of publication. The furious attacks since made upon us have been made chiefly by
those who differ from us in theological creed, and who have found a
misrepresentation of our prosecution served them as a convenient weapon of
attack. During the last few years public opinion has been gradually coming round
to our side, in consequence of the pressure of poverty resulting from widespread
depression of trade, and during the sensation caused in 1884 by "The Bitter Cry
of Outcast London," many writers in the Daily News—notably Mr. G.R.
Sims—boldly alleged that the distress was to a great extent due to the large
families of the poor, and mentioned that we had been prosecuted for giving the
very knowledge which would bring salvation to the sufferers in our great cities.
272.
Among the
useful results of the prosecution was the establishment of the Malthusian
League, "to agitate for the abolition of all penalties on the public discussion
of the population question," and "to spread among the people, by all practicable
means, a knowledge of the law of population, of its consequences, and of its
bearing upon human conduct and morals." The first general meeting of the League
was held at the Hall of Science on July 26, 1877, and a council of twenty
persons was elected, and this council on August 2nd elected Dr. C.R. Drysdale,
M.D., President; Mr. Swaagman, Treasurer; Mrs. Besant, Secretary; Mr. Shearer,
Assistant-Secretary; and Mr. Hember, Financial Secretary. Since 1877 the League,
under the same indefatigable president, has worked hard to carry out its
objects; it has issued a large number of leaflets and tracts; it supports a
monthly journal, the Malthusian; numerous lectures have been delivered
under its auspices in all parts of the country; and it has now a medical branch,
into which none but duly qualified medical men and women are admitted, with
members in all European countries.
273.
Another
result of the prosecution was the accession of "D." to the staff of the
National Reformer. This able and thoughtful writer came forward and joined
our ranks as soon as he heard of the attack on us, and he further volunteered to
conduct the journal during our expected imprisonment. From that time to this—a
period of fifteen years—articles from his pen appeared in its columns week by
week, and during all that time not one solitary difficulty arose between editors
and contributor. In public a trustworthy colleague, in private a warm and
sincere friend, "D." proved an unmixed benefit bestowed upon us by the
prosecution.
274.
Nor was "D."
the only friend brought to us by our foes. I cannot ever think of that time
without remembering that the prosecution brought me first into close intimacy
with Mrs. Annie Parris—the wife of Mr. Touzeau Parris, the Secretary of the
Defence Committee throughout all the fight—a lady who, during that long
struggle, and during the, for me, far worse struggle that succeeded it, over the
custody of my daughter, proved to me the most loving and sisterly of friends.
One or two other friendships which will, I hope, last my life, date from that
same time of strife and anxiety.
275.
The amount of
money subscribed by the public during the Knowlton and succeeding prosecutions
gives some idea of the interest felt in the struggle. The Defence Fund Committee
in March, 1878, presented a balance-sheet, showing subscriptions amounting to
£1,292 5s. 4d., and total expenditure in the Queen v. Bradlaugh and Besant, the
Queen v. Truelove, and the appeal against Mr. Vaughan's order (the last two up
to date) of £1,274 10s. This account was then closed and the balance of £17 15s.
4d. passed on to a new fund for the defence of Mr. Truelove, the carrying on of
the appeal against the destruction of the Knowlton pamphlet, and the bearing of
the costs incident on the petition lodged against myself. In July this new fund
had reached £196 16s. 7d., and after paying the remainder of the costs in Mr.
Truelove's case, a balance of £26 15s. 2d. was carried on. This again rose to
£247 15s. 2½d., and the fund bore the expenses of Mr. Bradlaugh's successful
appeal on the Knowlton pamphlet, the petition and subsequent proceedings in
which I was concerned in the Court of Chancery, and an appeal on Mr. Truelove's
behalf, unfortunately unsuccessful, against an order for the destruction of the
Dale Owen pamphlet. This last decision was given on February 21, 1880, and on
this the Defence Fund was closed. On Mr. Truelove's release, as mentioned above,
a testimonial to the amount of £197 16s. 6d. was presented to him, and after the
close of the struggle some anonymous friend sent to me personally £200 as
"thanks for the courage and ability shown." In addition to all this, the
Malthusian League received no less than £455 11s. 9d. during the first year of
its life, and started on its second year with a balance in hand of £77 5s. 8d.
276.
A somewhat
similar prosecution in America, in which the bookseller, Mr. D.M. Bennett, sold
a book with which he did not agree, and was imprisoned, led to our giving him a
warm welcome when, after his release, he visited England. We entertained him at
the Hall of Science at a crowded gathering, and I was deputed as spokesman to
present him with a testimonial. This I did in the following speech, quoted here
in order to show the spirit then animating me:—
277.
"Friends, Mr.
Bradlaugh has spoken of the duty that calls us here to-night. It is pleasant to
think that in our work that duty is one to which we are not unaccustomed. In our
army there are more true soldiers than traitors, more that are faithful to the
trust of keeping the truth than those who shrink when the hour of danger comes.
And I would ask Mr. Bennett to-night not to measure English feeling towards him
by the mere number of those present. They that are here are representatives of
many thousands of our fellow-countrymen. Glance down this middle table, and you
will see that it is not without some right that we claim to welcome you in the
name of multitudes of the citizens of England. There are those who taunt us with
want of loyalty, and with the name of infidels. In what church will they find
men and women more loyal to truth and conscience? The name infidel is not for us
so long as we are faithful to the truth we know. If I speak, as I have done, of
national representation in this hall this evening, tell me, you who know those
who sit here, who have watched some of them for years, others of them but for a
brief time, do I not speak truth? Take them one by one. Your President but a
little while ago in circumstances similar to those wherein our guest himself was
placed, with the true lover's keenness that recognises the mistress under all
disguise, beholding his mistress Liberty in danger, under circumstances that
would have blinded less sure eyes, leapt to her rescue. He risked the ambition
of his life rather than be disloyal to liberty. And next is seated a woman, who,
student of a noble profession, thought that liberty had greater claim upon her
than even her work. When we stood in worse peril than even loss of liberty, she
risked her own good name for the truth's sake. One also is here who, eminent in
his own profession, came with the weight of his position and his right to speak,
and gave a kindred testimony. One step further, and you see one who, soldier to
liberty, throughout a long and spotless life, when the task was far harder than
it is to-day, when there were no greetings, no welcomes, when to serve was to
peril name as well as liberty, never flinched from the first until now. He is
crowned with the glory of the jail, that was his for no crime but for claiming
the right to publish that wherein the noblest thought is uttered in the bravest
words. And next to him is another who speaks for liberty, who has brought
culture, university degree, position in men's sight, and many friends, and cast
them all at her beloved feet. Sir, not alone the past and the present greet you
to-night. The future also greets you with us. We have here also those who are
training themselves to walk in the footsteps of the one most dear to them, who
shall carry on, when we have passed away, the work which we shall have dropped
from our hands. But he whom we delight to honour at this hour in truth honours
us, in that he allows us to offer him the welcome that it is our glory and our
pleasure to give. He has fought bravely. The Christian creed had in its
beginning more traitors and less true hearts than the creed of to-day. We are
happy to-day not only in the thought of what manner of men we have for leaders,
but in the thought of what manner of men we have as soldiers in our army. Jesus
had twelve apostles. One betrayed Him for thirty pieces of silver; a second
denied Him. They all forsook Him and fled. We can scarcely point to one who has
thus deserted our sacred cause. The traditions of our party tell us of many who
went to jail because they claimed for all that right of free speech which is the
heritage of all. One of the most famous members of our body in England, Richard
Carlile, turned bookseller to sell books that were prosecuted. This man became
Free-thinker, driven thereto by the bigotry and wickedness of the Churches. He
sold the books of Hone not because he agreed with them, but because Hone was
prosecuted. He saw that the book in whose prosecution freedom was attacked was
the book for the freeman to sell; and the story of our guest shows that in all
this England and America are one. Those who gave Milton to the world can yet
bring forth men of the same stamp in continents leagues asunder. Because our
friend was loyal and true, prison had to him no dread. It was far, far less of
dishonour to wear the garb of the convict than to wear that of the hypocrite.
The society we represent, like his society in America, pleads for free thought,
speaks for free speech, claims for every one, however antagonistic, the right to
speak the thought he feels. It is better that this should be, even though the
thought be wrong, for thus the sooner will its error be discovered—better if the
thought be right, for then the sooner does the gladness of a new truth find
place in the heart of man. As the mouthpiece, Sir, of our National Secular
Society, and of its thousands of members, I speak to you now:—
278.
"'ADDRESS.
279.
"'We seek
for Truth.'
280.
"'To D.M.
Bennett.
281.
"'In asking
you to accept at the hands of the National Secular Society of England this
symbol of cordial sympathy and brotherly welcome, we are but putting into act
the motto of our Society. "We seek for Truth" is our badge, and it is as
Truthseeker that we do you homage to-night. Without free speech no search for
Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful; without
free speech progress is checked, and the nations no longer march forward towards
the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousandfold abuse of
free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day; the denial
slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.
282.
"'In your own
country you have pleaded for free speech, and when, under a wicked and an odious
law, one of your fellow-citizens was imprisoned for the publication of his
opinions, you, not sharing the opinions but faithful to liberty, sprang forward
to defend in him the principle of free speech which you claimed for yourself,
and sold his book while he lay in prison. For this act you were in turn arrested
and sent to jail, and the country which won its freedom by the aid of Paine in
the eighteenth century disgraced itself in the nineteenth by the imprisonment of
a heretic. The Republic of the United States dishonoured herself, and not you,
in Albany penitentiary. Two hundred thousand of your countrymen pleaded for your
release, but bigotry was too strong. We sent you greeting in your captivity; we
rejoiced when the time came for your release. We offer you to-night our thanks
and our hope—thanks for the heroism which never flinched in the hour of battle,
hope for a more peaceful future, in which the memory of a past pain may be a
sacred heritage and not a regret.
283.
"'Charles
Bradlaugh, President.'
284.
"Soldier of
liberty, we give you this. Do in the future the same good service that you have
done in the past, and your reward shall be in the love that true men shall bear
to you."
285.
That,
however, which no force could compel me to do, which I refused to threats of
fine and prison, to separation from my children, to social ostracism, and to
insults and ignominy worse to bear than death, I surrendered freely when all the
struggle was over, and a great part of society and of public opinion had adopted
the view that cost Mr. Bradlaugh and myself so dear. I may as well complete the
story here, so as not to have to refer to it again. I gave up Neo-Malthusianism
in April, 1891, its renunciation being part of the outcome of two years'
instruction from Mdme. H.P. Blavatsky, who showed me that however justifiable
Neo-Malthusianism might be while man was regarded only as the most perfect
outcome of physical evolution, it was wholly incompatible with the view of man
as a spiritual being, whose material form and environment were the results of
his own mental activity. Why and how I embraced Theosophy, and accepted H.P.
Blavatsky as teacher, will soon be told in its proper place. Here I am concerned
only with the why and how of my renunciation of the Neo-Malthusian teaching, for
which I had fought so hard and suffered so much.
286.
When I built
my life on the basis of Materialism I judged all actions by their effect on
human happiness in this world now and in future generations, regarding man as an
organism that lived on earth and there perished, with activities confined to
earth and limited by physical laws. The object of life was the ultimate
building-up of a physically, mentally, morally perfect man by the cumulative
effects of heredity—mental and moral tendencies being regarded as the outcome of
material conditions, to be slowly but surely evolved by rational selection and
the transmission to offspring of qualities carefully acquired by, and developed
in, parents. The most characteristic note of this serious and lofty Materialism
had been struck by Professor W. K. Clifford in his noble article on the "Ethics
of Belief."
287.
Taking this
view of human duty in regard to the rational co-operation with nature in the
evolution of the human race, it became of the first importance to rescue the
control of the generation of offspring from mere blind brute passion, and to
transfer it to the reason and to the intelligence; to impress on parents the
sacredness of the parental office, the tremendous responsibility of the exercise
of the creative function. And since, further, one of the most pressing problems
for solution in the older countries is that of poverty, the horrible slums and
dens into which are crowded and in which are festering families of eight and ten
children, whose parents are earning an uncertain 10s., 12s., 15s., and 20s. a
week; since an immediate palliative is wanted, if popular risings impelled by
starvation are to be avoided; since the lives of men and women of the poorer
classes, and of the worst paid professional classes, are one long,
heart-breaking struggle "to make both ends meet and keep respectable"; since in
the middle class marriage is often avoided, or delayed till late in life, from
the dread of the large family, and late marriage is followed by its shadow, the
prevalence of vice and the moral and social ruin of thousands of women; for
these, and many other reasons, the teaching of the duty of limiting the family
within the means of subsistence is the logical outcome of Materialism linked
with the scientific view of evolution, and with a knowledge of the physical law,
by which evolution is accelerated or retarded. Seeking to improve the physical
type, scientific Materialism, it seemed to me, must forbid parentage to any but
healthy married couples; it must restrict childbearing within the limits
consistent with the thorough health and physical well-being of the mother; it
must impose it as a duty never to bring children into the world unless the
conditions for their fair nurture and development are present. Regarding it as
hopeless, as well as mischievous, to preach asceticism, and looking on the
conjunction of nominal celibacy with widespread prostitution as inevitable, from
the constitution of human nature, scientific Materialism—quite rationally and
logically—advises deliberate restriction of the production of offspring, while
sanctioning the exercise of the sexual instinct within the limits imposed by
temperance, the highest physical and mental efficiency, the good order and
dignity of society, and the self-respect of the individual.
288.
In all this
there is nothing which for one moment implies approval of licentiousness,
profligacy, unbridled self-indulgence. On the contrary, it is a well-considered
and intellectually-defensible scheme of human evolution, regarding all natural
instincts as matters for regulation, not for destruction, and seeking to develop
the perfectly healthy and well-balanced physical body as the necessary basis for
the healthy and well-balanced mind. If the premises of Materialism be true,
there is no answer to the Neo-Malthusian conclusions; for even those Socialists
who have bitterly opposed the promulgation of Neo-Malthusianism—regarding it as
a "red herring intended to draw the attention of the proletariat away from the
real cause of poverty, the monopoly of land and capital by a class"—admit that
when society is built on the foundation of common property in all that is
necessary for the production of wealth, the time will come for the consideration
of the population question. Nor do I now see, any more than I saw then, how any
Materialist can rationally avoid the Neo-Malthusian position. For if man be the
outcome of purely physical causes, it is with these that we must deal in guiding
his future evolution. If he be related but to terrestrial existence, he is but
the loftiest organism of earth; and, failing to see his past and his future, how
should my eyes not have been then blinded to the deep-lying causes of his
present woe? I brought a material cure to a disease which appeared to me to be
of material origin; but how when the evil came from a subtler source, and its
causes lay not on the material plane? How if the remedy only set up new causes
for a future evil, and, while immediately a palliative, strengthened the disease
itself, and ensured its reappearance in the future? This was the view of the
problem set before me by H.P. Blavatsky when she unrolled the story of man, told
of his origin and his destiny, showed me the forces that went to the making of
man, and the true relation between his past, his present, and his future.
289.
For what is
man in the light of Theosophy? He is a spiritual intelligence, eternal and
uncreate, treading a vast cycle of human experience, born and reborn on earth
millennium after millennium, evolving slowly into the ideal man. He is not the
product of matter, but is encased in matter, and the forms of matter with which
he clothes himself are of his own making. For the intelligence and will of man
are creative forces—not creative ex nihilo, but creative as is the brain
of the painter—and these forces are exercised by man in every act of thought.
Thus he is ever creating round him thought-forms, moulding subtlest matter into
shape by these energies, forms which persist as tangible realities when the body
of the thinker has long gone back to earth and air and water. When the time for
rebirth into this earth-life comes for the soul these thought-forms, its own
progeny, help to form the tenuous model into which the molecules of physical
matter are builded for the making of the body, and matter is thus moulded for
the new body in which the soul is to dwell, on the lines laid down by the
intelligent and volitional life of the previous, or of many previous,
incarnations. So does each man create for himself in verity the form wherein he
functions, and what he is in his present is the inevitable outcome of his own
creative energies in his past. Applying this to the Neo-Malthusian theory, we
see in sexual love not only a passion which man has in common with the brute,
and which forms, at the present stage of evolution, a necessary part of human
nature, but an animal passion that may be trained and purified into a human
emotion, which may be used as one of the levers in human progress, one of the
factors in human growth. But, instead of this, man in the past has made his
intellect the servant of his passions; the abnormal development of the sexual
instinct in man—in whom it is far greater and more continuous than in any
brute—is due to the mingling with it of the intellectual element, all sexual
thoughts, desires, and imaginations having created thought-forms, which have
been wrought into the human race, giving rise to a continual demand, far beyond
nature, and in marked contrast with the temperance of normal animal life. Hence
it has become one of the most fruitful sources of human misery and human
degradation, and the satisfaction of its imperious cravings in civilised
countries lies at the root of our worst social evils. This excessive development
has to be fought against, and the instinct reduced within natural limits, and
this will certainly never be done by easy-going self-indulgence within the
marital relation any more than by self-indulgence outside it. By none other road
than that of self-control and self-denial can men and women now set going the
causes which will build for them brains and bodies of a higher type for their
future return to earth-life. They have to hold this instinct in complete
control, to transmute it from passion into tender and self-denying affection, to
develop the intellectual at the expense of the animal, and thus to raise the
whole man to the human stage, in which every intellectual and physical capacity
shall subserve the purposes of the soul. From all this it follows that
Theosophists should sound the note of self-restraint within marriage, and the
gradual—for with the mass it cannot be sudden—restriction of the sexual relation
to the perpetuation of the race.
290.
Such was the
bearing of Theosophical teaching on Neo-Malthusianism, as laid before me by H.P.
Blavatsky, and when I urged, out of my bitter knowledge of the miseries endured
by the poor, that it surely might, for a time at least, be recommended as a
palliative, as a defence in the hands of a woman against intolerable oppression
and enforced suffering, she bade me look beyond the moment, and see how the
suffering must come back and back with every generation, unless we sought to
remove the roots of wrong. "I do not judge a woman," she said, "who has resort
to such means of defence in the midst of circumstances so evil, and whose
ignorance of the real causes of all this misery is her excuse for snatching at
any relief. But it is not for you, an Occultist, to continue to teach a method
which you now know must tend to the perpetuation of the sorrow." I felt that she
was right, and though I shrank from the decision—for my heart somewhat failed me
at withdrawing from the knowledge of the poor, so far as I could, a temporary
palliative of evils which too often wreck their lives and bring many to an early
grave, worn old before even middle age has touched them—yet the decision was
made. I refused to reprint the "Law of Population," or to sell the copyright,
giving pain, as I sadly knew, to all the brave and loyal friends who had so
generously stood by me in that long and bitter struggle, and who saw the results
of victory thrown away on grounds to them inadequate and mistaken! Will it
always be, I wonder, in man's climbing upward, that every step must be set on
his own heart and on the hearts of those he loves?
(1) CHAPTER X.
291.
AT WAR ALL
ROUND.
292.
Coming back
to my work after my long and dangerous illness, I took up again its thread,
heartsick, but with courage unshaken, and I find myself in the National
Reformer for September 15, 1878, saying in a brief note of thanks that
"neither the illness nor the trouble which produced it has in any fashion
lessened my determination to work for the cause." In truth, I plunged into work
with added vigour, for only in that did I find any solace, but the pamphlets
written at this time against Christianity were marked with considerable
bitterness, for it was Christianity that had robbed me of my child, and I struck
mercilessly at it in return. In the political struggles of that time, when the
Beaconsfield Government was in full swing, with its policy of annexation and
aggression, I played my part with tongue and pen, and my articles in defence of
an honest and liberty-loving policy in India, against the invasion of
Afghanistan and other outrages, laid in many an Indian heart a foundation of
affection for me, and seem to me now as a preparation for the work among Indians
to which much of my time and thought to-day are given. In November of this same
year (1878) I wrote a little book on "England, India, and Afghanistan" that has
brought me many a warm letter of thanks, and with this, the carrying on of the
suit against Mr. Besant before alluded to, two and often three lectures every
Sunday, to say nothing of the editorial work on the National Reformer,
the secretarial work on the Malthusian League, and stray lectures during the
week, my time was fairly well filled. But I found that in my reading I developed
a tendency to let my thoughts wander from the subject in hand, and that they
would drift after my lost little one, so I resolved to fill up the gaps in my
scientific education, and to amuse myself by reading up for some examinations; I
thought it would serve as an absorbing form of recreation from my other work,
and would at the same time, by making my knowledge exact, render me more useful
as a speaker on behalf of the causes to which my life was given.
293.
At the
opening of the new year (1879) I met for the first time a man to whom I
subsequently owed much in this department of work—Edward B. Aveling, a D.Sc. of
London University, and a marvellously able teacher of scientific subjects, the
very ablest, in fact, that I have ever met. Clear and accurate in his knowledge,
with a singular gift for lucid exposition, enthusiastic in his love of science,
and taking vivid pleasure in imparting his knowledge to others, he was an ideal
teacher. This young man, in January, 1879, began writing under initials for the
National Reformer, and in February I became his pupil, with the view of
matriculating in June at the London University, an object which was duly
accomplished. And here let me say to any one in mental trouble, that they might
find an immense relief in taking up some intellectual recreation of this kind;
during that spring, in addition to my ordinary work of writing, lecturing, and
editing—and the lecturing meant travelling from one end of England to the
other—I translated a fair-sized French volume, and had the wear-and-tear of
pleading my case for the custody of my daughter in the Court of Appeal, as well
as the case before the Master of the Rolls; and I found it the very greatest
relief to turn to algebra, geometry, and physics, and forget the harassing legal
struggles in wrestling with formulae and problems. The full access I gained to
my children marked a step in the long battle of Freethinkers against
disabilities, for, as noted in the National Reformer by Mr. Bradlaugh, it
was "won with a pleading unequalled in any case on record for the boldness of
its affirmation of Freethought," a pleading of which he generously said that it
deserved well of the party as "the most powerful pleading for freedom of opinion
to which it has ever been our good fortune to listen."
294.
In the London
Daily News some powerful letters of protest appeared, one from Lord
Harberton, in which he declared that "the Inquisition acted on no other
principle" than that applied to me; and a second from Mr. Band, in which he
sarcastically observed that "this Christian community has for some time had the
pleasure of seeing her Majesty's courts repeatedly springing engines of torture
upon a young mother—a clergyman's wife who dared to disagree with his creed—and
her evident anguish, her long and expensive struggles to save her child, have
proved that so far as heretical mothers are concerned modern defenders of the
faith need not envy the past those persuasive instruments which so long secured
the unity of the Church. In making Mrs. Besant an example, the Master of the
Rolls and Lord Justice James have been careful not to allow any of the effect to
be lost by confusion of the main point—the intellectual heresy—with side
questions. There was a Malthusian matter in the case, but the judges were very
clear in stating that without any reference whatever to that, they would simply,
on the ground of Mrs. Besant's 'religious, or anti-religious, opinions,' take
her child from her." The great provincial papers took a similar tone, the
Manchester Examiner going so far as to say of the ruling of the judges: "We
do not say they have done so wrongly. We only say that the effect of their
judgment is cruel, and it shows that the holding of unpopular opinions is, in
the eye of the law, an offence which, despite all we had thought to the
contrary, may be visited with the severest punishment a woman and a mother can
be possibly called on to bear." The outcome of all this long struggle and of
another case of sore injustice—in which Mrs. Agar-Ellis, a Roman Catholic, was
separated from her children by a judicial decision obtained against her by her
husband, a Protestant—was a change in the law which had vested all power over
the children in the hands of the father, and from thenceforth the rights of the
married mother were recognised to a limited extent. A small side-fight was with
the National Sunday League, the president of which, Lord Thurlow, strongly
objected to me as one of the vice-presidents. Mr. P.A. Taylor and others at once
resigned their offices, and, on the calling of a general meeting, Lord Thurlow
was rejected as president. Mr. P.A. Taylor was requested to assume the
presidency, and the vice-presidents who had resigned were, with myself,
re-elected. Little battles of this sort were a running accompaniment of graver
struggles during all these battling years.
295.
And through
all the struggles the organised strength of the Freethought party grew, 650 new
members being enrolled in the National Secular Society in the year 1878-79, and
in July, 1879, the public adhesion of Dr. Edward B. Aveling brought into the
ranks a pen of rare force and power, and gave a strong impulse to the
educational side of our movement. I presided for him at his first lecture at the
Hall of Science on August 10, 1879, and he soon paid the penalty of his
boldness, finding himself, a few months later, dismissed from the Chair of
Comparative Anatomy at the London Hospital, though the Board admitted that all
his duties were discharged with punctuality and ability. One of the first
results of his adhesion was the establishment of two classes under the Science
and Art Department at South Kensington, and these grew year after year, attended
by numbers of young men and women, till in 1883 we had thirteen classes in full
swing, as well as Latin, and London University Matriculation classes; all these
were taught by Dr. Aveling and pupils that he had trained. I took advanced
certificates, one in honours, and so became qualified as a science teacher in
eight different sciences, and Alice and Hypatia Bradlaugh followed a similar
course, so that winter after winter we kept these classes going from September
to the following May, from 1879 until the year 1888. In addition to these Miss
Bradlaugh carried on a choral union.
296.
Personally I
found that this study and teaching together with attendance at classes held for
teachers at South Kensington, the study for passing the First B.Sc. and Prel.
Sc. Examinations at London University, and the study for the B.Sc. degree at
London, at which I failed in practical chemistry three times—a thing that
puzzled me not a little at the time, as I had passed a far more difficult
practical chemical examination for teachers at South Kensington—all this gave me
a knowledge of science that has stood me in good stead in my public work. But
even here theological and social hatred pursued me.
297.
When Miss
Bradlaugh and myself applied for permission to attend the botany class at
University College, we were refused, I for my sins, and she only for being her
father's daughter; when I had qualified as teacher, I stood back from claiming
recognition from the Department for a year in order not to prejudice the claims
of Mr. Bradlaugh's daughters, and later, when I had been recognised, Sir Henry
Tyler in the House of Commons attacked the Education Department for accepting
me, and actually tried to prevent the Government grant being paid to the Hall of
Science Schools because Dr. Aveling, the Misses Bradlaugh, and myself were
unbelievers in Christianity. When I asked permission to go to the Botanical
Gardens in Regent's Park the curator refused it, on the ground that his
daughters studied there. On every side repulse and insult, hard to struggle
against, bitter to bear. It was against difficulties of this kind on every side
that we had to make our way, handicapped in every effort by our heresy. Let our
work be as good as it might—and our Science School was exceptionally
successful—the subtle fragrance of heresy was everywhere distinguishable, and
when Mr. Bradlaugh and myself are blamed for bitterness in our anti-Christian
advocacy, this constant gnawing annoyance and petty persecution should be taken
into account. For him it was especially trying, for he saw his daughters—girls
of ability and of high character, whose only crime was that they were
his—insulted, sneered at, slandered, continually put at a disadvantage, because
they were his children and loved and honoured him beyond all others.
298.
It was in
October, 1879, that I first met Herbert Burrows, though I did not become
intimately acquainted with him till the Socialist troubles of the autumn of 1887
drew us into a common stream of work. He came as a delegate from the Tower
Hamlets Radical Association to a preliminary conference, called by Mr.
Bradlaugh, at the Hall of Science, on October 11th, to consider the advisability
of holding a great London Convention on Land Law Reform, to be attended by
delegates from all parts of the kingdom. He was appointed on the Executive
Committee with Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Mottershead, Mr. Nieass, and others. The
Convention was successfully held, and an advanced platform of Land Law Reform
adopted, used later by Mr. Bradlaugh as a basis for some of the proposals he
laid before Parliament.
(1) CHAPTER XI.
299.
MR.
BRADLAUGH'S STRUGGLE.
300.
And now
dawned the year 1880, the memorable year in which commenced Mr. Bradlaugh's long
Parliamentary battle. After a long and bitter struggle he was elected, with Mr.
Labouchere, as member for Northampton, at the general election, and so the prize
so long fought for was won. Shall I ever forget that election day, April 2,
1880? How at four o'clock Mr. Bradlaugh came into the room at the "George",
where his daughters and I were sitting, flung himself into a chair with,
"There's nothing more to do; our last man is polled." Then the waiting for the
declaration through the long, weary hours of suspense, till as the time drew
near we knelt by the window listening—listening to the hoarse murmur of the
crowd, knowing that presently there would be a roar of triumph or a howl of
anger when the numbers were read out from the steps of the Town Hall. And now
silence sank, and we knew the moment had come, and we held our breath, and
then—a roar, a wild roar of joy and exultation, cheer after cheer, ringing,
throbbing, pealing, and then the mighty surge of the crowd bringing him back,
their member at last, waving hats, handkerchiefs, a very madness of tumultuous
delight, and the shrill strains of "Bradlaugh for Northampton!" with a ring of
triumph in them they had never had before. And he, very grave, somewhat shaken
by the outpour of love and exultation, very silent, feeling the weight of new
responsibility more than the gladness of victory. And then the next morning, as
he left the town, the mass of men and women, one sea of heads from hotel to
station, every window crowded, his colours waving everywhere, men fighting to
get near him, to touch him, women sobbing, the cries, "Our Charlie, our Charlie;
we've got you and we'll keep you." How they loved him, how they joyed in the
triumph won after twelve years of strife. Ah me! we thought the struggle over,
and it was only beginning; we thought our hero victorious, and a fiercer,
crueller fight lay in front. True, he was to win that fight, but his life was to
be the price of the winning; victory for him was to be final, complete, but the
laurel-wreath was to fall upon a grave.
301.
302.
From a
photograph by T. Westley, 57, Vernon Street, Northampton.
CHARLES BRADLAUGH AND HENRY LABOUCHERE.
303.
The outburst
of anger from the more bigoted of the Christian community was as savage as the
outburst of delight had been exultant, but we recked little of it. Was he not
member, duly elected, without possibility of assailment in his legal right?
Parliament was to meet on April 29th, the swearing-in beginning on the following
day, and Mr. Bradlaugh had taken counsel with some other Freethinking members as
to the right of Freethinkers to affirm. He held that under the Act 29 and 30
Vict. c. 19, and the Evidence Amendment Acts 1869 and 1870, the right to
substitute affirmation for oath was clear; he was willing to take the oath as a
necessary form if obligatory, but, believing it to be optional, he preferred
affirmation. On May 3rd he presented himself and, according to the evidence of
Sir Erskine May, the Clerk of the House, given before the second Select
Committee on his case, he "came to the table and delivered the following
statement in writing to the Clerk: 'To the Right Honourable the Speaker of the
House of Commons. I, the undersigned, Charles Bradlaugh, beg respectfully to
claim to be allowed to affirm, as a person for the time being by law permitted
to make a solemn affirmation or declaration, instead of taking an oath. (Signed)
Charles Bradlaugh.' And being asked by the Clerk upon what grounds he claimed to
make an affirmation, he answered: 'By virtue of the Evidence Amendment Acts,
1869 and 1870.' Whereupon the Clerk reported to Mr. Speaker" the claim, and Mr.
Speaker told Mr. Bradlaugh that he might address the House on the matter. "Mr.
Bradlaugh's observations were very short. He repeated that he relied upon the
Evidence Further Amendment Act, 1869, and the Evidence Amendment Act, 1870,
adding: 'I have repeatedly, for nine years past, made an affirmation in the
highest courts of jurisdiction in this realm. I am ready to make such a
declaration or affirmation.' Substantially those were the words which he
addressed to the Speaker." This was the simple, quiet, and dignified scene which
took place in the House. Mr. Bradlaugh was directed to withdraw, and he
withdrew, and, after debate, a Select Committee was appointed to consider
whether he could make affirmation; that Committee decided against the claim, and
gave in its report on May 20th. On the following day Mr. Bradlaugh presented
himself at the table of the House to take the oath in the form prescribed by the
law, and on the objection of Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, who submitted a motion
that he should not be allowed to take the oath, another Committee was appointed.
304.
Before this
Committee Mr. Bradlaugh stated his case, and pointed out that the legal
obligation lay on him to take the oath, adding: "Any form that I went through,
any oath that I took, I should regard as binding upon my conscience in the
fullest degree. I would go through no form, I would take no oath, unless I meant
it to be so binding." He wrote in the same sense to the Times, saying
that he should regard himself "as bound, not by the letter of its words, but by
the spirit which the affirmation would have conveyed, had I been permitted to
use it." The Committee reported against him, and on June 23rd he was heard at
the Bar of the House, and made a speech so self-restrained, so noble, so
dignified, that the House, in defiance of all its own rules, broke out over and
over again into applause. In the debate that preceded his speech, members had
lost sight of the ordinary rules of decency, and had used expressions against
myself wholly gratuitous in such a quarrel; the grave rebuke to him who "was
wanting in chivalry, because, while I can answer for myself and am able to
answer for myself, nothing justified the introduction of any other name beside
my own to make prejudice against me," brought irrepressible cheers. His appeal
was wholly to the law. "I have not yet used—I trust no passion may tempt me into
using—any words that would seem to savour of even a desire to enter into
conflict with this House. I have always taught, preached, and believed the
supremacy of Parliament, and it is not because for a moment the judgment of one
Chamber of Parliament should be hostile to me that I am going to deny the ideas
I have always held; but I submit that one Chamber of Parliament—even its
grandest Chamber, as I have always held this to be—had no right to override the
law. The law gives me the right to sign that roll, to take and subscribe the
oath, and to take my seat there [with a gesture towards the benches]. I admit
that the moment I am in the House, without any reason but your own good will,
you can send me away. That is your right. You have full control over your
members. But you cannot send me away until I have been heard in my place, not a
suppliant as I am now, but with the rightful audience that each member has
always had.... I am ready to admit, if you please, for the sake of argument,
that every opinion I hold is wrong and deserves punishment. Let the law punish
it. If you say the law cannot, then you admit that you have no right, and I
appeal to public opinion against the iniquity of a decision which overrides the
law and denies me justice. I beg your pardon, sir, and that of the House too, if
in this warmth there seems to lack respect for its dignity. And as I shall have,
if your decision be against me, to come to that table when your decision is
given, I beg you, before the step is taken in which we may both lose our
dignity—mine is not much, but yours is that of the Commons of England—I beg you,
before the gauntlet is fatally thrown, I beg you, not in any sort of menace, not
in any sort of boast, but as one man against six hundred, to give me that
justice which on the other side of this hall the judges would give me, were I
pleading there before them."
305.
But no
eloquence, no plea for justice, could stay the tide of Tory and religious
bigotry, and the House voted that he should not be allowed to take the oath.
Summoned to the table to hear the decision communicated by the Speaker, he
answered that decision with the words firmly spoken: "I respectfully refuse to
obey the order of the House, because that order was against the law." The
Speaker appealed to the House for direction, and on a division—during which the
Speaker and Charles Bradlaugh were left together in the chamber—the House
ordered the enforcement of Mr. Bradlaugh's withdrawal. Once more the order is
given, once more the refusal made, and then the Serjeant-at-Arms was bidden to
remove him. Strange was the scene as little Captain Cosset walked up to the
member of Herculean proportions, and men wondered how the order would be
enforced; but Charles Bradlaugh was not the man to make a vulgar brawl, and the
light touch on his shoulder was to him the touch of an authority he admitted and
to which he bowed. So he gravely accompanied his small captor, and was lodged in
the Clock Tower of the House as prisoner until the House should further consider
what to do with him—the most awkward prisoner it had ever had, in that in his
person it was imprisoning the law.
306.
In a special
issue of the National Reformer, giving an account of the Committee's work
and of Mr. Bradlaugh's committal to the Clock Tower, I find the following from
my own pen: "The Tory party, beaten at the polls by the nation, has thus, for
the moment, triumphed in the House of Commons. The man chosen by the Radicals of
Northampton has been committed to prison on the motion of the Tory ex-Chancellor
of the Exchequer, simply because he desires to discharge the duty laid upon him
by his constituency and by the law of the land. As this paper goes to press, I
go to Westminster to receive from him his directions as to the conduct of the
struggle with the nation into which the House of Commons has so recklessly
plunged." I found him busily writing, prepared for all events, ready for a long
imprisonment. On the following day a leaflet from my pen, "Law Makers and Law
Breakers," appealed to the people; after reciting what had happened, it
concluded: "Let the people speak. Gladstone and Bright are for Liberty, and the
help denied them within the House must come to them from without. No time must
be lost. While we remain idle, a representative of the people is illegally held
in prison. Northampton is insulted, and in this great constituency every
constituency is threatened. On freedom of election depends our liberty; on
freedom of conscience depends our progress. Tory squires and lordlings have
defied the people and measured their strength against the masses. Let the masses
speak." But there was no need to make appeals, for the outrage itself caused so
swiftly a growl of anger that on the very next day the prisoner was set free,
and there came protest upon protest against the high-handed action of the House.
In Westminster Hall 4,000 people gathered to cheer Mr. Bradlaugh when he came to
the House on the day after his liberation. In less than a week 200 meetings had
thundered out their protest. Liberal associations, clubs, societies, sent up
messages of anger and of demand for justice. In Trafalgar Square there
gathered—so said the papers—the largest crowd ever seen there, and on the
Thursday following—the meeting was held on Monday—the House of Commons rescinded
its resolution, refusing to allow Mr. Bradlaugh to affirm, and admitted him on
Friday, July 2nd, to take his seat after affirmation. "At last the bitter
struggle is over," I wrote, "and law and right have triumphed. The House of
Commons has, by rescinding the resolution passed by Tories and Ultramontanes,
re-established its good name in the eyes of the world. The triumph is not one of
Freethought over Christianity, nor is it over the House of Commons; it is the
triumph of law, brought about by good men—of all shades of opinion, but of one
faith in justice—over Tory contempt of law and Ultramontane bigotry. It is the
reassertion of civil and religious liberty under the most difficult
circumstances, the declaration that the House of Commons is the creation of the
people, and not a club of the aristocracy with the right of blackballing in its
own hands."
307.
The battle
between Charles Bradlaugh and his persecutors was now transferred to the law
courts. As soon as he had taken his seat he was served with a writ for having
voted without having taken the oath, and this began the wearisome proceedings by
which his defeated enemies boasted that they would make him bankrupt, and so
vacate the seat he had so hardly gained. Rich men like Mr. Newdegate sued him,
putting forward a man of straw as nominal plaintiff; for many a weary month Mr.
Bradlaugh kept all his enemies at bay, fighting each case himself; defeated time
after time, he fought on, finally carrying the cases to the House of Lords, and
there winning them triumphantly. But they were won at such heavy cost of
physical strength and of money, that they undermined his strength and burdened
him heavily with debt. For all this time he had not only to fight in the law
courts and to attend scrupulously to his Parliamentary duties, but he had to
earn his living by lecturing and writing, so that his nights away from the House
were spent in travelling and his days in incessant labour. Many of his defeated
foes turned their weapons against me, hoping thus to give him pain; thus Admiral
Sir John Hay, at Wigton, used language of me so coarse that the Scotsman
and Glasgow Herald refused to print it, and the editor of the Scotsman
described it as "language so coarse that it could have hardly dropped from a
yahoo." August 25th found me at Brussels, whither I went, with Miss Hypatia
Bradlaugh, to represent the English Freethinkers at the International
Freethought Conference. It was an interesting gathering, attended by men of
world-wide reputation, including Dr. Ludwig Büchner, a man of noble and kindly
nature. An International Federation of Freethinkers was there founded, which did
something towards bringing together the Freethinkers of different countries, and
held interesting congresses in the following years in London and Amsterdam; but
beyond these meetings it did little, and lacked energy and vitality. In truth,
the Freethought party in each country had so much to do in holding its own that
little time and thought could be given to international organisation. For
myself, my introduction to Dr. Büchner, led to much interesting correspondence,
and I translated, with his approval, his "Mind in Animals," and the enlarged
fourteenth edition of "Force and Matter," as well as one or two pamphlets. This
autumn of 1880 found the so-called Liberal Government in full tilt against the
Irish leaders, and I worked hard to raise English feeling in defence of Irish
freedom even against attack by one so much honoured as was Mr. Gladstone. It was
uphill work, for harsh language had been used against England and all things
English, but I showed by definite figures—all up and down England—that life and
property were far safer in Ireland than in England, that Ireland was singularly
free from crime save in agrarian disputes, and I argued that these would
disappear if the law should step in between landlord and tenant, and by stopping
the crimes of rack-renting and most brutal eviction, put an end to the horrible
retaliations that were born of despair and revenge. A striking point on these
evictions I quoted from Mr. T.P. O'Connor, who, using Mr. Gladstone's words that
a sentence of eviction was a sentence of starvation, told of 15,000 processes of
eviction issued in that one year. The autumn's work was varied by the teaching
of science classes, a debate with a clergyman of the Church of England, and an
operation which kept me in bed for three weeks, but which, on the other hand,
was useful, for I learned to write while lying on my back, and accomplished in
this fashion a good part of the translation of "Mind in Animals."
308.
And here let
me point a moral about hard work. Hard work kills no one. I find a note in the
National Reformer in 1880 from the pen of Mr. Bradlaugh: "It is, we fear,
useless to add that, in the judgment of her best friends, Mrs. Besant has worked
far too hard during the last two years." This is 1893, and the thirteen years'
interval has been full of incessant work, and I am working harder than ever now,
and in splendid health. Looking over the National Reformer for all these
years, it seems to me that it did really fine educational work; Mr. Bradlaugh's
strenuous utterances on political and theological matters; Dr. Aveling's
luminous and beautiful scientific teachings; and to my share fell much of the
educative work on questions of political and national morality in our dealings
with weaker nations. We put all our hearts into our work, and the influence
exercised was distinctly in favour of pure living and high thinking.
309.
In the spring
of 1881 the Court of Appeal decided against Mr. Bradlaugh's right to affirm as
Member of Parliament, and his seat was declared vacant, but he was at once
returned again by the borough of Northampton, despite the virulence of slander
directed against him, so that he rightly described the election as "the most
bitter I have ever fought." His work in the House had won him golden opinions in
the country, and he was already recognised as a power there; so Tory fear was
added to bigoted hatred, and the efforts to keep him out of the House were
increased.
310.
He was
introduced to the House as a new member to take his seat by Mr. Labouchere and
Mr. Burt, but Sir Stafford Northcote intervened, and after a lengthy debate,
which included a speech from Mr. Bradlaugh at the Bar, a majority of
thirty-three refused to allow him to take the oath. After a prolonged scene,
during which Mr. Bradlaugh declined to withdraw and the House hesitated to use
force, the House adjourned, and finally the Government promised to bring in an
Affirmation Bill, and Mr. Bradlaugh promised, with the consent of his
constituents, to await the decision of the House on this Bill. Meantime, a
League for the Defence of Constitutional Rights was formed, and the agitation in
the country grew: wherever Mr. Bradlaugh went to speak vast crowds awaited him,
and he travelled from one end of the country to the other, the people answering
his appeal for justice with no uncertain voice. On July 2nd, in consequence of
Tory obstruction, Mr. Gladstone wrote to Mr. Bradlaugh that the Government were
going to drop the Affirmation Bill, and Mr. Bradlaugh thereupon determined to
present himself once more in the House, and fixed on August 3rd as the date of
such action, so that the Irish Land Bill might get through the House ere any
delay in business was caused by him. The House was then closely guarded with
police; the great gates were closed, reserves of police were packed in the law
courts, and all through July this state of siege continued. On August 2nd there
was a large meeting in Trafalgar Square, at which delegates were present from
all parts of England, and from as far north as Edinburgh, and on Wednesday,
August 3rd, Mr. Bradlaugh went down to the House. His last words to me were:
"The people know you better than they know any one, save myself; whatever
happens, mind, whatever happens, let them do no violence; I trust to you to keep
them quiet." He went to the House entrance with Dr. Aveling, and into the House
alone. His daughters and I went together, and with some hundreds of others
carrying petitions—ten only with each petition, and the ten rigidly counted and
allowed to pass through the gate, sufficiently opened to let one through at a
time—reached Westminster Hall, where we waited on the steps leading to the
passage of the lobby.
311.
An inspector
ordered us off. I gently intimated that we were within our rights. Dramatic
order: "Four officers this way." Up they marched and looked at us, and we looked
at them. "I think you had better consult Inspector Denning before you use
violence," I remarked placidly. They thought they had, and in a few moments up
came the inspector, and seeing that we were standing in a place where we had a
right to be, and were doing no harm, he rebuked his over-zealous subordinates,
and they retired and left us in peace. A man of much tact and discretion was
Inspector Denning. Indeed, all through this, the House of Commons police behaved
admirably well. Even in the attack they were ordered to make on Mr. Bradlaugh,
the police used as little violence as they could. It was Mr. Erskine, the Deputy
Serjeant-at-Arms, and his ushers, who showed the brutality; as Dr. Aveling wrote
at the time: "The police disliked their work, and, as brave men, had a sympathy
for a brave man. Their orders they obeyed rigidly. This done, they were kindness
itself." Gradually the crowd of petitioners grew and grew; angry murmurs were
heard, for no news came from the House, and they loved "Charlie," and were
mostly north country men, sturdy and independent. They thought they had a right
to go into the lobby, and suddenly, with the impulse that will sway a crowd to a
single action there was a roar, "Petition, petition, justice, justice," and they
surged up the steps, charging at the policemen who held the door. Flashed into
my mind my chief's charge, his words, "I trust to you to keep them quiet," and
as the police sprang forward to meet the crowd I threw myself between them, with
all the advantage of the position of the top of the steps that I had chosen, so
that every man in the charging crowd saw me, and as they checked themselves in
surprise I bade them stop for his sake, and keep for him the peace which he had
bade us should not be broken. I heard afterwards that as I sprang forward the
police laughed—they must have thought me a fool to face the rush of the charging
men; but I knew his friends would never trample me down, and as the crowd
stopped the laugh died out, and they drew back and left me my own way.
312.
Sullenly the
men drew back, mastering themselves with effort, reining in their wrath, still
for his sake. Ah! had I known what was going on inside, would I have kept his
trust unbroken! and, as many a man said to me afterwards in northern towns, "Oh!
if you had let us go we would have carried him into the House up to the
Speaker's chair." We heard a crash inside, and listened, and there was sound of
breaking glass and splintering wood, and in a few minutes a messenger came to
me: "He is in Palace Yard." And we went thither and saw him standing, still and
white, face set like marble, coat torn, motionless, as though carved in stone,
facing the members' door. Now we know the whole shameful story: how as that one
man stood alone, on his way to claim his right, alone so that he could do no
violence, fourteen men, said the Central News, police and ushers, flung
themselves upon him, pushed and pulled him down the stairs, smashing in their
violence the glass and wood of the passage door; how he struck no blow, but used
only his great strength in passive resistance—" Of all I have ever seen, I never
saw one man struggle with ten like that," said one of the chiefs, angrily
disdainful of the wrong he was forced to do—till they flung him out into Palace
Yard. An eye-witness thus reported the scene in the Press: "The strong, broad,
heavy, powerful frame of Mr. Bradlaugh was hard to move, with its every nerve
and muscle strained to resist the coercion. Bending and straining against the
overpowering numbers, he held every inch with surprising tenacity, and only
surrendered it after almost superhuman exertions to retain it. The sight—little
of it as was seen from the outside—soon became sickening. The overborne man
appeared almost at his last gasp. The face, in spite of the warmth of the
struggle, had an ominous pallor. The limbs barely sustained him.... The
Trafalgar Square phrase that this man might be broken but not bent occurred to
minds apprehensive at the present appearance of him."
313.
They flung
him out, and swift, short words were there interchanged. "I nearly did wrong at
the door," he said afterwards, "I was very angry. I said to Inspector Denning,
'I shall come again with force enough to overcome it,' He said, 'When?' I said,
'Within a minute if I raise my hand.'" He stood in Palace Yard, and there
outside the gate was a vast sea of heads, the men who had journeyed from all
parts of England for love of him, and in defence of the great right he
represented of a constituency to send to Parliament the man of its choice. Ah!
he was never greater than in that moment of outrage and of triumphant wrong;
with all the passion of a proud man surging within him, insulted by physical
violence, injured by the cruel wrenching of all his muscles—so that for weeks
his arms had to be swathed in bandages—he was never greater than when he
conquered his own wrath, crushed down his own longing for battle, stirred to
flame by the bodily struggle, and the bodily injury, and with thousands waiting
within sound of his voice, longing to leap to his side, he gave the word to tell
them to meet him that evening away from the scene of conflict, and meanwhile to
disperse quietly, "no riot, no disorder." But how he suffered mentally no words
of mine may tell, and none can understand how it wrung his heart who does not
know how he reverenced the great Parliament of England, how he honoured law, how
he believed in justice being done; it was the breaking down of his national
ideals, of his pride in his country, of his belief that faith would be kept with
a foe by English gentlemen, who with all their faults, he thought, held honour
and chivalry dear. "No man will sleep in gaol for me to-night," he said to me
that day; "no woman can blame me for her husband killed or wounded, but—" A wave
of agony swept over his face, and from that fatal day Charles Bradlaugh was
never the same man. Some hold their ideals lightly, but his heart-strings were
twined round his; some care little for their country—he was an Englishman,
law-abiding, liberty-loving, to his heart's core, of the type of the
seventeenth-century patriot, holding England's honour dear. It was the treachery
that broke his heart; he had gone alone, believing in the honour of his foes,
ready to submit to expulsion, to imprisonment, and it was the latter that he
expected; but he never dreamed that, going alone amongst his foes, they would
use brutal and cowardly violence, and shame every Parliamentary tradition by
personal outrage on a duly-elected member, outrage more worthy of a slum
pot-house than of the great Commons House, the House of Hampden and of Vane, the
House that had guarded its own from Royal violence, and had maintained its
privileges in the teeth of kings.
314.
These stormy
scenes brought about a promise of Government aid; Mr. Bradlaugh failed to get
any legal redress, as, indeed, he expected to fail, on the ground that the
officials of the House were covered by the House's order, but the Government
promised to support his claim to his seat during the next session, and thus
prevented the campaign against them on which we had resolved. I had solely on my
own responsibility organised a great band of people pledged to refrain from the
use of all excisable articles after a certain date, and to withdraw all their
moneys in the Savings Bank, thus seriously crippling the financial resources of
the Government. The response from the workers to my appeal to "Stop the
supplies" was great and touching. One man wrote that as he never drank nor
smoked he would leave off tea; others that though tobacco was their one luxury,
they would forego it; and so on. Somewhat reluctantly, I asked the people to lay
aside this formidable weapon, as "we have no right to embarrass the Government
financially save when they refuse to do the first duty of a Government to
maintain law. They have now promised to do justice, and we must wait." Meanwhile
the injuries inflicted on Mr. Bradlaugh, rupturing the sheaths of some of the
muscles of the arm, laid him prostrate, and various small fights went on during
the temporary truce in the great struggle. I turned up in the House two or three
times, haled thither, though not in person, by the people who kept Mr. Bradlaugh
out, and a speech of mine became the subject of a question by Mr. Ritchie, while
Sir Henry Tyler waged war on the science classes. Another joy was added to life
by the use of my name—which by all these struggles had gained a marketable
value—as author of pamphlets I had never seen, and this forgery of my name by
unscrupulous people in the colonies caused me a good deal of annoyance. In the
strengthening of the constitutional agitation in the country, the holding of an
International Congress of Freethinkers in London, the studying and teaching of
science, the delivering of courses of scientific lectures in the Hall of
Science, a sharp correspondence with the Bishop of Manchester, who had libelled
Secularists, and which led to a fiery pamphlet, "God's Views on Marriage," as
retort—in all these matters the autumn months sped rapidly away. One incident of
that autumn I record with regret. I was misled by very partial knowledge of the
nature of the experiments performed, and by my fear that if scientific men were
forbidden to experiment on animals with drugs they would perforce experiment
with them on the poor in hospitals, to write two articles, republished as a
pamphlet, against Sir Eardley Wilmot's Bill for the "Total Suppression of
Vivisection." I limited my approval to highly skilled men engaged in original
investigations, and took the representations made of the character of the
experiments without sufficient care to verify them. Hence the publication of the
one thing I ever wrote for which I feel deep regret and shame, as against the
whole trend and efforts of my life. I am thankful to say that Dr. Anna Kingsford
answered my articles, and I readily inserted her replies in the paper in which
mine had appeared—our National Reformer—and she touched that question of
the moral sense to which my nature at once responded. Ultimately, I looked
carefully into the subject, found that vivisection abroad was very different
from vivisection in England, saw that it was in very truth the fiendishly cruel
thing that its opponents alleged, and destroyed my partial defence of even its
less brutal form.
(1)
1882 saw no
cessation of the struggles in which Mr. Bradlaugh and those who stood by him
were involved. On February 7th he was heard for the third time at the Bar of the
House of Commons, and closed his speech with an offer that, accepted, would have
closed the contest. "I am ready to stand aside, say for four or five weeks,
without coming to that table, if the House within that time, or within such time
as its great needs might demand, would discuss whether an Affirmation Bill
should pass or not. I want to obey the law, and I tell you how I might meet the
House still further, if the House will pardon me for seeming to advise it. Hon.
members have said that would be a Bradlaugh Relief Bill. Bradlaugh is more proud
than you are. Let the Bill pass without applying to elections that have taken
place previously, and I will undertake not to claim my seat, and when the Bill
has passed I will apply for the Chiltern Hundreds. I have no fear. If I am not
fit for my constituents, they shall dismiss me, but you never shall. The grave
alone shall make me yield." But the House would do nothing. He had asked for
100,000 signatures in favour of his constitutional right, and on February 8th,
9th, and 10th 1,008 petitions, bearing 241,970 signatures, were presented; the
House treated them with contemptuous indifference. The House refused to declare
his seat vacant, and also refused to allow him to fill it, thus
half-disfranchising Northampton, while closing every avenue to legal redress.
Mr. Labouchere—who did all a loyal colleague could do to assist his brother
member—brought in an Affirmation Bill; it was blocked. Mr. Gladstone, appealed
to support the law declared by his own Attorney-General, refused to do anything.
An impasse was created, and all the enemies of freedom rejoiced. Out of
this position of what the Globe
called "quiet omnipotence" the House was shaken by an audacious defiance, for on
February 21st the member it was trying to hold at arm's length took the oath in
its startled face, went to his seat, and—waited events. The House then expelled
him—and, indeed, it could scarcely do anything else after such defiance—and Mr.
Labouchere moved for a new writ, declaring that Northampton was ready, its
"candidate was Charles Bradlaugh, expelled this House." Northampton, ever
steadfast, returned him for the third time—the vote in his favour showing an
increase of 359 over the second bye-election—and the triumph was received in all
the great towns of England with wild enthusiasm. By the small majority of
fifteen in a House of 599 members—and this due to the vacillation of the
Government—he was again refused the right to take his seat. But now the whole
Liberal Press took up his quarrel; the oath question became a test question for
every candidate for Parliament, and the Government was warned that it was
alienating its best friends. The Pall Mall Gazette voiced the general
feeling. "What is the evidence that an Oaths Bill would injure the Government in
the country? Of one thing we may be sure, that if they shirk the Bill they will
do no good to themselves at the elections. Nobody doubts that it will be made a
test question, and any Liberal who declines to vote for such a Bill will
certainly lose the support of the Northampton sort of Radicalism in every
constituency. The Liberal Press throughout the country is absolutely unanimous.
The political Non-conformists are for it. The local clubs are for it. All that
is wanted is that the Government should pick up a little more moral courage, and
recognise that even in practice honesty is the best policy." The Government did
not think so, and they paid the penalty, for one of the causes that led to their
defeat at the polls was the disgust felt at their vacillation and cowardice in
regard to the rights of constituencies. Not untruly did I write, in May, 1882,
that Charles Bradlaugh was a man "who by the infliction of a great wrong had
become the incarnation of a great principle"; for the agitation in the country
grew and grew, until, returned again to Parliament at the General Election, he
took the oath and his seat, brought in and carried an Oaths Bill, not only
giving Members of Parliament the right to affirm, but making Freethinkers
competent as jurymen, and relieving witnesses from the insult hitherto put upon
those who objected to swearing; he thus ended an unprecedented struggle by a
complete victory, weaving his name for ever into the constitutional history of
his country.
315.
In the House
of Lords, Lord Redesdale brought in a Bill disqualifying Atheists from sitting
in Parliament, but in face of the feeling aroused in the country, the Lords,
with many pathetic expressions of regret, declined to pass it. But, meanwhile,
Sir Henry Tyler in the Commons was calling out for prosecutions for blasphemy to
be brought against Mr. Bradlaugh and his friends, while he carried on his
crusade against Mr. Bradlaugh's daughters, Dr. Aveling, and myself, as science
teachers. I summed up the position in the spring of 1882 in the following
somewhat strong language: "This short-lived 'Parliamentary Declaration Bill' is
but one of the many clouds which presage a storm of prosecution. The reiterated
attempts in the House of Commons to force the Government into prosecuting
heretics for blasphemy; the petty and vicious attacks on the science classes at
the Hall; the odious and wicked efforts of Mr. Newdegate to drive Mr. Bradlaugh
into the Bankruptcy Court; all these are but signs that the heterogeneous army
of pious and bigoted Christians are gathering together their forces for a
furious attack on those who have silenced them in argument, but whom they hope
to conquer by main force, by sheer brutality. Let them come. Free-thinkers were
never so strong, never so united, never so well organised as they are to-day.
Strong in the goodness of our cause, in our faith in the ultimate triumph of
Truth, in our willingness to give up all save fidelity to the sacred cause of
liberty of human thought and human speech, we await gravely and fearlessly the
successors of the men who burned Bruno, who imprisoned Galileo, who tortured
Vanini—the men who have in their hands the blood-red cross of Jesus of Nazareth,
and in their hearts the love of God and the hate of man."
(1) CHAPTER XII.
316.
STILL
FIGHTING.
317.
All this hot
fighting on the religious field did not render me blind to the misery of the
Irish land so dear to my heart, writhing in the cruel grip of Mr. Forster's
Coercion Act. An article "Coercion in Ireland and its Results," exposing the
wrongs done under the Act, was reprinted as a pamphlet and had a wide
circulation.
318.
I pleaded
against eviction—7,020 persons had been evicted during the quarter ending in
March—for the trial of those imprisoned on suspicion, for indemnity for those
who before the Land Act had striven against wrongs the Land Act had been carried
to prevent, and I urged that "no chance is given for the healing measures to
cure the sore of Irish disaffection until not only are the prisoners in Ireland
set at liberty, but until the brave, unfortunate Michael Davitt stands once more
a free man on Irish soil." At last the Government reconsidered its policy and
resolved on juster dealings; it sent Lord Frederick Cavendish over to Ireland,
carrying with him the release of the "suspects," and scarcely had he landed ere
the knife of assassination struck him—a foul and cowardly murder of an innocent
messenger of peace. I was at Blackburn, to lecture on "The Irish Question," and
as I was walking towards the platform, my heart full of joy for the dawning hope
of peace, a telegram announcing the assassination was placed in my hands. Never
shall I forget the shock, the incredulous horror, the wave of despair. "It is
not only two men they have killed," I wrote, a day or two later; "they have
stabbed the new-born hope of friendship between two countries, and have reopened
the gulf of hatred that was just beginning to close." Alas! the crime succeeded
in its object, and hurried the Government into new wrong. Hastily a new Coercion
Bill was brought in, and rushed through its stages in Parliament, and, facing
the storm of public excitement, I pleaded still, "Force no remedy," despite the
hardship of the task. "There is excessive difficulty in dealing with the Irish
difficulty at the present moment. Tories are howling for revenge on a whole
nation as answer to the crime committed by a few; Whigs are swelling the outcry;
many Radicals are swept away by the current, and feeling that 'something must be
done,' they endorse the Government action, forgetting to ask whether the
'something' proposed is the wisest thing. A few stand firm, but they are very
few—too few to prevent the new Coercion Bill from passing into law. But few
though we be who lift up the voice of protest against the wrong which we are
powerless to prevent, we may yet do much to make the new Act of brief duration,
by so rousing public opinion as to bring about its early repeal. When the
measure is understood by the public half the battle will be won; it is accepted
at the moment from faith in the Government; it will be rejected when its true
character is grasped. The murders which have given birth to this repressive
measure came with a shock upon the country, which was the more terrible from the
sudden change from gladness and hope to darkness and despair. The new policy was
welcomed so joyfully; the messenger of the new policy was slain ere yet the pen
was dry which had signed the orders of mercy and of liberty. Small wonder that
cry of horror should be followed by measures of vengeance; but the murders were
the work of a few criminals, while the measure of vengeance strikes the whole of
the Irish people. I plead against the panic which confounds political agitation
and political redressal of wrong with crime and its punishment; the Government
measure gags every mouth in Ireland, and puts, as we shall see, all political
effort at the mercy of the Lord-Lieutenant, the magistracy, and the police." I
then sketched the misery of the peasants in the grip of absentee landlords, the
turning out on the roadside to die of the mother with new-born babe at her
breast, the loss of "all thought of the sanctity of human life when the lives of
the dearest are reckoned as less worth than the shillings of overdue
rack-rental." I analysed the new Act: "When this Act passes, trial by jury,
right of public meeting, liberty of press, sanctity of house, will one and all
be held at the will of the Lord-Lieutenant, the irresponsible autocrat of
Ireland, while liberty of person will lie at the mercy of every constable. Such
is England's way of governing Ireland in the year 1882. And this is supposed to
be a Bill for the 'repression of crime.'" Bluntly, I put the bald truth: "The
plain fact is that the murderers have succeeded. They saw in the new policy the
reconciliation of England and Ireland; they knew that friendship would follow
justice, and that the two countries, for the first time in history, would clasp
hands. To prevent this they dug a new gulf, which they hoped the English nation
would not span; they sent a river of blood across the road of friendship, and
they flung two corpses to bar the newly-opened gate of reconciliation and peace.
They have succeeded."
319.
Into this
whirl of political and social strife came the first whisper to me of the
Theosophical Society, in the shape of a statement of its principles, which
conveyed, I remarked, "no very definite idea of the requirements for membership,
beyond a dreamy, emotional, scholarly interest in the religio-philosophic
fancies of the past." Also a report of an address by Colonel Olcott, which led
me to suppose that the society held to "some strange theory of 'apparitions' of
the dead, and to some existence outside the physical and apart from it." These
came to me from some Hindû Freethinkers, who asked my opinion as to Secularists
joining the Theosophical Society, and Theosophists being admitted to the
National Secular Society. I replied, judging from these reports, that "while
Secularists would have no right to refuse to enrol Theosophists, if they desired
it, among their members, there is a radical difference between the mysticism of
Theosophy and the scientific materialism of Secularism. The exclusive devotion
to this world implied in the profession of Secularism leaves no room for
other-worldism; and consistent members of our body cannot join a society which
professes belief therein."[27]
(1)
H.P.
Blavatsky penned a brief article in the Theosophist for August, 1882, in
which she commented on my paragraph, remarking, in her generous way, that it
must have been written "while labouring under entirely misconceived notions
about the real nature of our society. For one so highly intellectual and keen as
that renowned writer to dogmatise and issue autocratic ukases, after she has
herself suffered so cruelly and undeservedly at the hands of blind bigotry and
social prejudice in her lifelong struggle for freedom of thought seems,
to say the least, absurdly inconsistent." After quoting my paragraph she went
on: "Until proofs to the contrary, we prefer to believe that the above lines
were dictated to Mrs. Besant by some crafty misrepresentations from Madras,
inspired by a mean personal revenge rather than a desire to remain consistent
with the principles of 'the scientific materialism of Secularism.' We beg to
assure the Radical editors of the National Reformer that they were both
very strangely misled by false reports about the Radical editors of the
Theosophist. The term 'supernaturalists' can no more apply to the latter
than to Mrs. A. Besant and Mr. C. Bradlaugh."
(2)
H.P.
Blavatsky, when she commented, as she occasionally did, on the struggles going
on in England, took of them a singularly large-hearted and generous view. She
referred with much admiration to Mr. Bradlaugh's work and to his Parliamentary
struggle, and spoke warmly of the services he had rendered to liberty. Again, in
pointing out that spiritualistic trance orations by no means transcended
speeches that made no such claim, I find her first mention of myself: "Another
lady orator, of deservedly great fame, both for eloquence and learning—the good
Mrs. Annie Besant—without believing in controlling spirits, or for that matter
in her own spirit, yet speaks and writes such sensible and wise things, that we
might almost say that one of her speeches or chapters contains more matter to
benefit humanity than would equip a modern trance-speaker for an entire
oratorical career."[28]
I have sometimes wondered of late years whether, had I met her then or seen any
of her writings, I should have become her pupil. I fear
not; I was still too much dazzled by the triumphs of Western Science, too
self-assertive, too fond of combat, too much at the mercy of my own emotions,
too sensitive to praise and blame. I needed to sound yet more deeply the depths
of human misery, to hear yet more loudly the moaning of "the great Orphan,"
Humanity, to feel yet more keenly the lack of wider knowledge and of clearer
light if I were to give effective help to man, ere I could bow my pride to crave
admittance as pupil to the School of Occultism, ere I could put aside my
prejudices and study the Science of the Soul.
320.
The
long-continued attempts of Sir Henry Tyler and his friends to stimulate
persecutions for blasphemy at length took practical shape, and in July, 1882,
Mr. Foote, the editor, Mr. Ramsey, the publisher, and Mr. Whittle, the printer
of the Freethinker, were summoned for blasphemy by Sir Henry Tyler
himself. An attempt was made to involve Mr. Bradlaugh in the proceedings, and
the solicitors promised to drop the case against the editor and printer if Mr.
Bradlaugh would himself sell them some copies of the paper. But however ready
Mr. Bradlaugh had always shown himself to shield his subordinates by taking his
sins on his own shoulders, he saw no reason why he should assume responsibility
for a paper over which he had no control, and which was, he thought, by its
caricatures, lowering the tone of Freethought advocacy and giving an unnecessary
handle to its foes. He therefore answered that he would sell the solicitors any
works published by himself or with his authority, and sent them a catalogue of
the whole of such works. The object of this effort of Sir Henry Tyler's was
obvious enough, and Mr. Bradlaugh commented: "The above letters make it pretty
clear that Sir Henry W. Tyler having failed in his endeavour to get the science
classes stopped at the Hall of Science, having also failed in his attempt to
induce Sir W. Vernon Harcourt to prosecute myself and Mrs. Besant as editors and
publishers of this journal, desires to make me personally and criminally
responsible for the contents of a journal I neither edit nor publish, over which
I have not a shadow of control, and in which I have not the smallest interest.
Why does Sir H.W. Tyler so ardently desire to prosecute, me for blasphemy? Is it
because two convictions will under the 9th and 10th Will. III. cap. 32, render
me 'for ever' incapable of sitting in Parliament?" The Whitehall Review
frankly put this forward as an object to be gained, and Mr. Bradlaugh was
summoned to the Mansion House on a charge of publishing blasphemous libels in
the Freethinker; meanwhile Sir Henry Tyler put a notice on the Order Book
to deprive "the daughters of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh" of the grant they had earned
as science teachers, and got an order which proved to be invalid, but which was
acted on, to inspect Mr. Bradlaugh's and my own private banking accounts, I
being no party to the case. Looking back, I marvel at the incredible meannesses
to which Sir Henry Tyler and others stooped in defence of "religion"—Heaven save
the mark! Let me add that his motion in the House of Commons was a complete
failure, and it was emphasised by the publication at the same time of the
successful work, both as teachers and as students, of the "daughters of Mr.
Charles Bradlaugh," and of my being the only student in all England who had
succeeded in taking honours in botany.
321.
I must pause
a moment to chronicle, in September, 1882, the death of Dr. Pusey, whom I had
sought in the whirl of my early religious struggles. I wrote an article on him
in the National Reformer, and ended by laying a tribute on his grave: "A
strong man and a good man. Utterly out of harmony with the spirit of his own
time, looking with sternly-rebuking eyes on all the eager research, the joyous
love of nature, the earnest inquiry into a world doomed to be burnt up at the
coming of its Judge. An ascetic, pure in life, stern in faith, harsh to
unbelievers because sincere in his own cruel creed, generous and tender to all
who accepted his doctrines and submitted to his Church. He never stooped to
slander those with whom he disagreed. His hatred of heresy led him not to
blacken the character of heretics, nor to descend to the vulgar abuse used by
pettier priests. And therefore I, who honour courage and sincerity wherever I
find them; I, who do homage to steadfastness wherever I find it; I, Atheist, lay
my small tribute of respect on the bier of this noblest of the Anglo-Catholics,
Edward Bouverie Pusey."
322.
As a
practical answer to the numberless attacks made on us, and as a result of the
enormous increase of circulation given to our theological and political writings
by these harassing persecutions, we moved our publishing business to 63, Fleet
Street, at the end of September, 1882, a shop facing that at which Richard
Carlile had carried on his publishing business for a great time, and so seemed
still redolent with memories of his gallant struggles. Two of the first things
sold here were a pamphlet of mine, a strong protest against our shameful
Egyptian policy, and a critical volume on "Genesis" which Mr. Bradlaugh found
time to write in the intervals of his busy life. Here I worked daily, save when
out of London, until Mr. Bradlaugh's death in 1891, assisted in the conduct of
the business by Mr. Bradlaugh's elder daughter—a woman of strong character with
many noble qualities, who died rather suddenly in December, 1888, and in the
work on the National Reformer, first by Dr. Aveling, and then by Mr. John
Robertson, its present editor. Here, too, from 1884 onwards, worked with me
Thornton Smith, one of Mr. Bradlaugh's most devoted disciples, who became one of
the leading speakers of the National Secular Society; like her well-loved chief,
she was ever a good friend and a good fighter, and to me the most loyal and
loving of colleagues, one of the few—the very few—Freethinkers who were
large-hearted and generous enough not to turn against me when I became a
Theosophist. A second of these—alas! I could count them on my fingers—was the
John Robertson above mentioned, a man of rare ability and wide culture, somewhat
too scholarly for popular propagandism of the most generally effective order,
but a man who is a strength to any movement, always on the side of noble living
and high thinking, loyal-natured as the true Scot should be, incapable of
meanness or treachery, and the most genial and generous of friends.
323.
Among the new
literary ventures that followed on our taking the large publishing premises in
Fleet Street was a sixpenny magazine, edited by myself, and entitled Our
Corner; its first number was dated January, 1883, and for six years it
appeared regularly, and served me as a useful mouthpiece in my Socialist and
Labour propagandist work. Among its contributors were Moncure D. Conway,
Professor Ludwig Büchner, Yves Guyot, Professor Ernst Haeckel, G. Bernard Shaw,
Constance Naden, Dr. Aveling, J.H. Levy, J.L. Joynes, Mrs. Edgren, John
Robertson, and many another, Charles Bradlaugh and I writing regularly each
month.
(1)
1883 broke
stormily, fights on every hand, and a huge constitutional agitation going on in
the country, which forced the Government into bringing in an Affirmation Bill;
resolutions from Liberal Associations all over the land; preparations to oppose
the re-election of disloyal members; no less than a thousand delegates sent up
to London by clubs, Trade Unions, associations of every sort; a meeting that
packed Trafalgar Square; an uneasy crowd in Westminster Hall; a request from
Inspector Denning that Mr. Bradlaugh would go out to them—they feared for his
safety inside; a word from him, "The Government have pledged themselves to bring
in an Affirmation Bill at once;" roar after roar of cheering; a veritable
people's victory on that 15th of February, 1883. It was the answer of the
country to the appeal for justice, the rebuke of the electors to the House that
had defied them.
324.
Scarcely was
this over when a second prosecution for blasphemy against Messrs. Foote, Ramsey,
and Kemp began, and was hurried on in the Central Criminal Court, before Mr.
Justice North, a bigot of the sternest type. The trial ended in a disagreement
of the jury, Mr. Foote defending himself in a splendid speech. The judge acted
very harshly throughout, interrupted Mr. Foote continuously, and even refused
bail to the defendants during the interval between the first and second trial;
they were, therefore, confined in Newgate from Thursday to Monday, and we were
only allowed to see them through iron bars and lattice, as they exercised in the
prison yard between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m. Brought up to trial again on Monday, they
were convicted, and Mr. Foote was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, Mr. Ramsey
to nine months, and Mr. Kemp to three months. Mr. Foote especially behaved with
great dignity and courage in a most difficult position, and heard his cruel
sentence without wincing, and with the calm words, "My Lord, I thank you; it is
worthy your creed." A few of us at once stepped in, to preserve to Mr. Ramsey
his shop, and to Mr. Foote his literary property; Dr. Aveling undertook the
editing of the Freethinker
and of Mr. Foote's magazine Progress; the immediate necessities of their
families were seen to; Mr. and Mrs. Forder took charge of the shop, and within a
few days all was in working order. Disapproving as many of us did of the policy
of the paper, there was no time to think of that when a blasphemy prosecution
had proved successful, and we all closed up in the support of men imprisoned for
conscience' sake. I commenced a series of articles on "The Christian Creed; what
it is blasphemy to deny," showing what Christians must believe under peril of
prosecution. Everywhere a tremendous impulse was given to the Freethought
movement, as men awakened to the knowledge that blasphemy laws were not
obsolete.
325.
From over the
sea came a word of sympathy from the pen of H.P. Blavatsky in the Theosophist.
"We prefer Mr. Foote's actual position to that of his severe judge. Aye, and
were we in his guilty skin, we would feel more proud, even in the poor editor's
present position, than we would under the wig of Mr. Justice North."
326.
In April,
1883, the long legal struggles of Mr. Bradlaugh against Mr. Newdegate and his
common informer, that had lasted from July 2, 1880, till April 9, 1883, ended in
his complete victory by the judgment of the House of Lords in his favour. "Court
after Court decided against me," he wrote; "and Whig and Tory journals alike
mocked at me for my persistent resistance. Even some good friends thought that
my fight was hopeless, and that the bigots held me fast in their toils. I have,
however, at last shaken myself free of Mr. Newdegate and his common informer.
The judgment of the House of Lords in my favour is final and conclusive, and the
boasts of the Tories that I should be made bankrupt for the penalties, have now,
for ever, come to naught. Yet but for the many poor folk who have stood by me
with their help and sympathy, I should have long since been ruined. The days and
weeks spent in the Law Courts, the harassing work connected with each stage of
litigation, the watching daily when each hearing was imminent, the absolute
hindrance of all provincial lecturing—it is hardly possible for any one to judge
the terrible mental and pecuniary strain of all this long-drawn-out struggle."
Aye! it killed him at last, twenty years before his time, sapping his splendid
vitality, undermining his iron constitution.
327.
The blasphemy
trial of Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Foote, and Mr. Ramsey now came on, but this time in
the Queen's Bench, before the Lord Chief Justice Coleridge. I had the honour of
sitting between Mr. Bradlaugh and Mr. Foote, charged with the duty of having
ready for the former all his references, and with a duplicate brief to mark off
point after point as he dealt with it. Messrs. Foote and Ramsey were brought up
in custody, but were brave and bright with courage unbroken. Mr. Bradlaugh
applied to have his case taken separately, as he denied responsibility for the
paper, and the judge granted the application; it was clearly proved that he and
I—the "Freethought Publishing Company"—had never had anything to do with the
production of the paper; that until November, 1881, we published it, and then
refused to publish it any longer; that the reason for the refusal was the
addition of comic Bible illustrations as a feature of the paper. I was called as
witness and began with a difficulty; claiming to affirm, I was asked by the
judge if the oath would not be binding on my conscience; I answered that any
promise was binding on me whatever the form, and after some little argument the
judge found a way out of the insulting form by asking whether the "invocation of
the Deity added anything to it of a binding nature—added any sanction?" "None,
my Lord," was the prompt reply, and I was allowed to affirm. Sir Hardinge
Giffard subjected me to a very stringent cross-examination, doing his best to
entangle me, but the perfect frankness of my answers broke all his weapons of
finesse and inuendo.
328.
Some of the
incidents of the trial were curious; Sir Hardinge Giffard's opening speech was
very able and very unscrupulous. All facts in Mr. Bradlaugh's favour were
distorted or hidden; anything that could be used against him was tricked out in
most seductive fashion. Among the many monstrous perversions of the truth made
by this most pious counsel, was the statement that changes of publisher, and of
registration of the Freethinker were made in consequence of a question as
to prosecuting it put in the House of Commons. The change of publisher was
admittedly made in November; the registration was made for the first time in
November, and could not be changed, as there was no previous one. The House of
Commons was not sitting in November; the question alluded to was asked in the
following February. This one deliberate lie of the "defender of the faith" will
do as well as quoting a score of others to show how wickedly and maliciously he
endeavoured to secure an unjust verdict.
329.
The speech
over, a number of witnesses were called. Sir Hardinge did not call witnesses who
knew the facts, such as Mr. Norrish, the shopman, or Mr. Whittle, the printer.
These he carefully avoided, although he subpoenaed both, because he did not want
the real facts to come out. But he put in two solicitor's clerks, who had been
hanging about the premises, and buying endless National Reformers and
Freethinkers, sheaves of them which were never used, but by which Sir
Hardinge hoped to convey the impression of a mass of criminality. He put in a
gentleman from the British Museum, who produced two large books, presumed to be
National Reformers and Freethinkers; what they were brought for
nobody understood, the counsel for the Crown as little as any one, and the
judge, surveying them over his spectacles, treated them with supreme contempt,
as utterly irrelevant. Then a man came to prove that Mr. Bradlaugh was rated for
Stonecutter Street, a fact no one disputed. Two policemen came to say they had
seen him go in. "You saw many people go in, I suppose?" queried the Lord Chief
Justice. On the whole the most miserably weak and obviously malicious case that
could be brought into a court of law.
330.
One witness,
however, must not be forgotten—Mr. Woodhams, bank manager. When he stated that
Mr. Maloney, the junior counsel for the Crown, had inspected Mr. Bradlaugh's
banking account, a murmur of surprise and indignation ran round the court. "Oh!
Oh!" was heard from the crowd of barristers behind. The judge looked down
incredulously, and for a moment the examination was stopped by the general
movement. Unless Sir Hardinge Giffard is a splendid actor, he was not aware of
the infamous proceeding, for he looked as startled as the rest of his legal
brethren.
331.
Another queer
incident occurred, showing, perhaps more than aught else, Mr. Bradlaugh's swift
perception of the situation and adaptation to the environment. He wanted to read
the Mansion House deposition of Norrish, to show why he was not called; the
judge objected, and declined to allow it to be read. A pause while you might
count five; then; "Well, I think I may say the learned counsel did not call
Norrish because ..." and then the whole substance of the deposition was given in
supposititious form. The judge looked down a minute, and then went off into
silent laughter impossible to control at the adroit change of means and
persistent gaining of end; barristers all round broke into ripples of laughter
unrestrained; a broad smile pervaded the jury box; the only unmoved person was
the defendant who proceeded in his grave statement as to what Norrish "might"
have been asked. The nature of the defence was very clearly stated by Mr.
Bradlaugh: "I shall ask you to find that this prosecution is one of the steps in
a vindictive attempt to oppress and to crush a political opponent—that it was a
struggle that commenced on my return to Parliament in 1880. If the prosecutor
had gone into the box I should have shown you that he was one of the first then
in the House to use the suggestion of blasphemy against me there. Since then I
have never had any peace until the Monday of this week. Writs for penalties have
been served, and suits of all kinds have been taken against me. On Monday last
the House of Lords cleared me from the whole of one set, and, gentlemen, I ask
you to-day to clear me from another. Three times I have been re-elected by my
constituents, and what Sir Henry Tyler asks you to do is to send me to them
branded with the dishonour of a conviction, branded not with the conviction for
publishing heresy, but branded with the conviction, dishonourable to me, of
having lied in this matter. I have no desire to have a prison's walls closed on
me, but I would sooner ten times that, than that my constituents should think
that for one moment I lied to escape the penalties. I am not indicted for
anything I have ever written or caused to be written. As my Lord at the very
first stage this morning pointed out, it is no question with me, Are the matters
indicted blasphemous, or are they not blasphemous? Are they defensible, or are
they not defensible? That is not my duty here. On this I make no comment. I have
no duty here of even discussing the policy of the blasphemy laws, although I
cannot help thinking that, if I were here making my defence against them, I
might say that they were bad laws unfairly revived, doing more mischief to those
who revive them than to those whom they are revived against. But it is not for
anything I have said myself; it is not for anything I have written myself; it is
not for anything I have published myself. It is an endeavour to make me
technically liable for a publication with which I have nothing whatever to do,
and I will ask you to defeat that here. Every time I have succeeded I have been
met with some new thing. When I first fought it was hoped to defeat my election.
When I was re-elected it was sought to make me bankrupt by enormous penalties,
and when I escaped the suit for enormous penalties they hope now to destroy me
by this. I have no question here about defending my heresy, not because I am not
ready to defend it when it is challenged in the right way, and it there be
anything in it that the law can challenge. I have never gone back from anything
I have ever said; I have never gone back from anything I have ever written; I
have never gone back from anything I have ever done; and I ask you not to allow
this Sir Henry Whatley Tyler, who dares not come here to-day, to use you as the
assassin uses the dagger, to stab a man from behind whom he never dares to
face."
332.
The summing
up by Lord Coleridge was perfect in eloquence, in thought, in feeling. Nothing
more touching could be imagined than the conflict between the real religious
feeling, abhorrent of heresy, and the determination to be just, despite all
prejudice. The earnest effort lest the prejudice he felt as a Christian should
weigh also in the minds of the jury, and should cause them to pervert justice.
The absolute pleading to them to do what was right and not to admit against the
unbeliever what they would not admit in ordinary cases. Then the protest against
prosecution of opinions; the admission of the difficulties in the Hebrew
Scriptures, and the pathetic fear lest by persecution "the sacred truths might
be struck through the sides of those who are their enemies." For intellectual
clearness and moral elevation this exquisite piece of eloquence, delivered in a
voice of silvery beauty, would be hard to excel, and Lord Coleridge did this
piece of service to the religion so dear to his heart, that he showed that a
Christian judge could be just and righteous in dealing with a foe of his creed.
333.
There was a
time of terrible strain waiting for the verdict, and when at last it came, "Not
Guilty," a sharp clap of applause hailed it, sternly and rightly reproved by the
judge. It was echoed by the country, which almost unanimously condemned the
prosecution as an iniquitous attempt on the part of Mr. Bradlaugh's political
enemies to put a stop to his political career. Thus the
Pall Mall Gazette wrote:—
334.
"Whatever may
be the personal or political or religious aversion which is excited by Mr.
Bradlaugh, it is impossible for even his bitterest opponents to deny the
brilliance of the series of victories which he has won in the law courts. His
acquittal in the blasphemy prosecution of Saturday was but the latest of a
number of encounters in which he has succeeded in turning the tables upon his
opponents in the most decisive fashion. The policy of baiting Mr. Bradlaugh
which has been persisted in so long, savours so strongly of a petty and
malignant species of persecution that it is well that those who indulge in it
should be made to smart for their pains. The wise and weighty words used by the
Lord Chief Justice in summing up should be taken seriously to heart: 'Those
persons are to be deprecated who would pervert the law, even with the best
intentions, and "do evil that good may come, whose damnation" (says the apostle)
"is just."' Without emulating the severity of the apostle, we may say that it is
satisfactory that the promoters of all these prosecutions should be condemned in
costs."
335.
In the
separate trial of Messrs. Foote and Ramsey, Mr. Foote again defended himself in
a speech of marked ability, and spoken of by the judge as "very striking." Lord
Coleridge made a noble charge to the jury, in which he strongly condemned
prosecutions of unpopular opinions, pointing out that no prosecution short of
extermination could be effective, and caustically remarking on the very easy
form of virtue indulged in by persecutors. "As a general rule," he said,
"persecution, unless far more extreme than in England in the nineteenth century
is possible, is certain to be in vain. It is also true, and I cannot help
assenting to it, that it is a very easy form of virtue. It is a more difficult
form of virtue, quietly and unostentatiously to obey what we believe to be God's
will in our own lives. It is not very easy to do it; and it makes much less
noise in the world. It is very easy to turn upon somebody else who differs from
us, and in the guise of zeal of God's honour to attack somebody of a difference
of opinion, whose life may be more pleasing to God and more conducive to His
honour than our own. And when it is done by persons whose own lives are not free
from reproach and who take that particular form of zeal for God which consists
in putting the criminal law in force against others, that, no doubt, does more
to create a sympathy with the defendant than with the prosecutor. And if it
should be done by those who enjoy the wit of Voltaire, and who do not turn away
from the sneers of Gibbon, and rather relish the irony of Hume, our feelings do
not go with the prosecutors, and we are rather disposed to sympathise with the
defendant. It is still worse if the person who takes such a course takes it, not
from a kind of notion that God wants his assistance, and that he can give it
less on his own account than by prosecuting others—but it is mixed up with
anything of partisan or political feeling, then nothing can be more foreign to
what is high-minded, or religious, or noble, in men's conduct; and indeed, it
seems to me that any one who will do that, not for the honour of God but for the
purpose of the ban, deserves the most disdainful disapprobation."
336.
The jury
disagreed, and a nolle prosequi was entered. The net results of the
trials were a large addition to the membership of the National Secular Society,
an increase of circulation of Freethought literature, the raising of Mr. Foote
for a time to a position of great influence and popularity, and the placing of
his name in history as a brave martyr for liberty of speech. The offence against
good taste will be forgotten; the loyalty to conviction and to courage will
remain. History does not ask if men who suffered for heresy ever published a
rough word; it asks, Were they brave in their steadfastness; were they faithful
to the truth they saw? It may be well to place on record Mr. Foote's punishment
for blasphemy: he spent twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four alone in his
cell; his only seat was a stool without a back; his employment was picking
matting; his bed was a plank with a thin mattress. During the latter part of his
imprisonment he was allowed some books.
(1) CHAPTER XIII.
337.
SOCIALISM.
338.
The rest of
1883 passed in the usual way of hard work; the Affirmation Bill was rejected,
and the agitation for Constitutional right grew steadily; the Liberal Press was
won over, and Mr. Bradlaugh was beginning to earn golden opinions on all sides
for his courage, his tenacity, and his self-control. A successful International
Congress at Amsterdam took some of us over to the Northern Venice, where a most
successful gathering was held. To me, personally, the year has a special
interest, as being the one in which my attention was called, though only
partially, to the Socialist movement. I had heard Louise Michelle lecture in the
early spring; a brief controversy in the National Reformer
had interested me, but I had not yet concerned myself with the economic basis of
Socialism; I had realised that the land should be public property, but had not
gone into the deeper economic causes of poverty, though the question was
pressing with ever-increasing force on heart and brain. Of Socialist teaching I
knew nothing, having studied only the older English Economists in my younger
days. In 1884 a more definite call to consider 299 these teachings was to come,
and I may perhaps open the record of 1884 with the words of greeting spoken by
me to our readers in the first number of the Reformer for that year:
"What tests 1884 may have for our courage, what strains on our endurance, what
trials of our loyalty, none can tell. But this we know—that every test of
courage successfully met, every strain of endurance steadily borne, every trial
of loyalty nobly surmounted, leaves courage braver, endurance stronger, loyalty
truer, than each was before. And therefore, for our own and for the world's
sake, I will not wish you, friends, an 1884 in which there shall be no toil and
no battling; but I will wish you, each and all, the hero's heart and the hero's
patience, in the struggle for the world's raising that will endure through the
coming year."
339.
On February
3rd I came for the first time across a paper called Justice, in which Mr.
Bradlaugh was attacked, and which gave an account of a meeting of the Democratic
Federation—not yet the Social Democratic—in which a man had, apparently
unrebuked, said that "all means were justifiable to attain" working-class ends.
I protested strongly against the advocacy of criminal means, declaring that
those who urged the use of such means were the worst foes of social progress. A
few weeks later the Echo repeated a speech of Mr. Hyndman's in which a
"bloodier revolution" than that of France was prophesied, and the extinction of
"book-learning" seemed coupled with the success of Socialism, and this again I
commented on. But I had the pleasure, a week later, of reprinting from
Justice a sensible paragraph, condemning the advocacy of violence so long as
free agitation was allowed.
340.
The spring
was marked by two events on which I have not time or space to dwell—the
resignation by Mr. Bradlaugh of his seat, on the reiteration of the resolution
of exclusion, and his triumphant return for the fourth time by an increased
majority, a vote of 4,032, a higher poll than that of the general election; and
the release of Mr. Foote, on February 25th, from Holloway, whence he was
escorted by a procession a quarter of a mile in length. On the 12th of March he
and his fellow-prisoners received a magnificent reception and were presented
with valuable testimonials at the Hall of Science.
341.
Taking up
again the thread of Socialism, the great debate in St. James's Hall, London,
between Mr. Bradlaugh and Mr. Hyndman on April 17th, roused me to a serious
study of the questions raised. Socialism has in England no more devoted, no more
self-sacrificing advocate than Henry Hyndman. A man of wide and deep reading,
wielding most ably a singularly fascinating pen, with talents that would have
made him wealthy in any career he adopted, he has sacrificed himself without a
murmur to the people's cause. He has borne obloquy from without, suspicion and
unkindness from those he served, and surrounded by temptations to betray the
people, he has never swerved from his integrity. He has said rash things, has
been stirred to passionate outbursts and reckless phrases, but love to the
people and sympathy with suffering lay at the root of his wildest words, and
they count but little as against his faithful service. Personally, my debt to
him is of a mixed character; he kept me from Socialism for some time by his
bitter and very unjust antagonism to Mr. Bradlaugh; but it was the debate at St.
James's Hall that, while I angrily resented his injustice, made me feel that
there was something more in practical Socialism than I had imagined, especially
when I read it over afterwards, away from the magic of Mr. Bradlaugh's
commanding eloquence and personal magnetism. It was a sore pity that English
Socialists, from the outset of their movement, treated Mr. Bradlaugh so
unfairly, so that his friends were set against Socialists ere they began to
examine their arguments. I must confess that my deep attachment to him led me
into injustice to his Socialist foes in those early days, and often made me
ascribe to them calculated malignity instead of hasty and prejudiced assertion.
Added to this, their uncurbed violence in discussion, their constant
interruptions during the speeches of opponents, their reckless inaccuracy in
matters of fact, were all bars standing in the way of the thoughtful. When I
came to know them better, I found that the bulk of their speakers were very
young men, overworked and underpaid, who spent their scanty leisure in efforts
to learn, to educate themselves, to train themselves, and I learned to pardon
faults which grew out of the bitter sense of injustice, and which were due
largely to the terrible pressure of our system on characters not yet strong
enough—how few are strong enough!—to bear grinding injustice without loss of
balance and of impartiality. None save those who have worked with them know how
much of real nobility, of heroic self-sacrifice, of constant self-denial, of
brotherly affection, there is among the Social Democrats.
342.
At this time
also I met George Bernard Shaw, one of the most brilliant of Socialist writers
and most provoking of men; a man with a perfect genius for "aggravating" the
enthusiastically earnest, and with a passion for representing himself as a
scoundrel. On my first experience of him on the platform at South Place
Institute he described himself as a "loafer," and I gave an angry snarl at him
in the Reformer, for a loafer was my detestation, and behold! I found
that he was very poor, because he was a writer with principles and preferred
starving his body to starving his conscience; that he gave time and earnest work
to the spreading of Socialism, spending night after night in workmen's clubs;
and that "a loafer" was only an amiable way of describing himself because he did
not carry a hod. Of course I had to apologise for my sharp criticism as doing
him a serious injustice, but privately felt somewhat injured at having been
entrapped into such a blunder. Meanwhile I was more and more turning aside from
politics and devoting myself to the social condition of the people I find
myself, in June, protesting against Sir John Lubbock's Bill which fixed a
twelve-hour day as the limit of a "young person's" toil. "A 'day' of twelve
hours is brutal," I wrote; "if the law fixes twelve hours as a 'fair day' that
law will largely govern custom. I declare that a 'legal day' should be eight
hours on five days in the week and not more than five hours on the sixth. If the
labour is of an exhausting character these hours are too long." On every side
now the Socialist controversy grew, and I listened, read, and thought much, but
said little. The inclusion of John Robertson in the staff of the Reformer
brought a highly intellectual Socialist into closer touch with us, and slowly I
found that the case for Socialism was intellectually complete and ethically
beautiful. The trend of my thought was shown by urging the feeding of Board
School children, breaking down under the combination of education and
starvation, and I asked, "Why should people be pauperised by a rate-supported
meal, and not pauperised by, state-supported police, drainage, road-mending,
street-lighting, &c? "Socialism in its splendid ideal appealed to my heart,
while the economic soundness of its basis convinced my head. All my life was
turned towards the progress of the people, the helping of man, and it leaped
forward to meet the stronger hope, the lofty ideal of social brotherhood, the
rendering possible to all of freer life; so long had I been striving
thitherward, and here there opened up a path to the yearned-for goal! How strong
were the feelings surging in my heart may be seen in a brief extract from an
article published second week of January, 1885: "Christian charity? We know its
work. It gives a hundred-weight of coal and five pounds of beef once a year to a
family whose head could earn a hundred such doles if Christian justice allowed
him fair wage for the work he performs. It plunders the workers of the wealth
they make, and then flings back at them a thousandth part of their own product
as 'charity.' It builds hospitals for the poor whom it has poisoned in filthy
courts and alleys, and workhouses for the worn-out creatures from whom it has
wrung every energy, every hope, every joy. Miss Cobbe summons us to admire
Christian civilisation, and we see idlers flaunting in the robes woven by the
toilers, a glittering tinselled super-structure founded on the tears, the
strugglings, the grey, hopeless misery of the poor."
343.
This first
month of January, 1885, brought on me the first attack for my Socialistic
tendencies, from the pen of Mr. W.P. Ball, who wrote to the Reformer
complaining of my paragraph, quoted above, in which I had advocated
rate-supported meals for Board School children. A brief controversy thus arose,
in which I supported my opinion, waiving the question as to my being "at heart a
Socialist." In truth, I dreaded to make the plunge of publicly allying myself
with the advocates of Socialism, because of the attitude of bitter hostility
they had adopted towards Mr. Bradlaugh. On his strong, tenacious nature,
nurtured on self-reliant individualism, the arguments of the younger generation
made no impression. He could not change his methods because a new tendency was
rising to the surface, and he did not see how different was the Socialism of our
day to the Socialist dreams of the past—noble ideals of a future not immediately
realisable in truth, but to be worked towards and rendered possible in the days
to come. Could I take public action which might bring me into collision with the
dearest of my friends, which might strain the strong and tender tie so long
existing between us? My affection, my gratitude, all warred against the idea of
working with those who wronged him so bitterly. But the cry of starving children
was ever in my ears; the sobs of women poisoned in lead works, exhausted in nail
works, driven to prostitution by starvation, made old and haggard by ceaseless
work. I saw their misery was the result of an evil system, was inseparable from
private ownership of the instruments of wealth production; that while the worker
was himself but an instrument, selling his labour under the law of supply and
demand, he must remain helpless in the grip of the employing classes, and that
trade combinations could only mean increased warfare—necessary, indeed, for the
time as weapons of defence—but meaning war, not brotherly co-operation of all
for the good of all. A conflict which was stripped of all covering, a conflict
between a personal tie and a call of duty could not last long, and with a heavy
heart I made up my mind to profess Socialism openly and work for it with all my
energy. Happily, Mr. Bradlaugh was as tolerant as he was strong, and our private
friendship remained unbroken; but he never again felt the same confidence in my
judgment as he felt before, nor did he any more consult me on his own policy, as
he had done ever since we first clasped hands.
344.
A series of
articles in Our Corner on the "Redistribution of Political Power," on the
"Evolution of Society," on "Modern Socialism," made my position clear. "Over
against those who laud the present state of Society, with its unjustly rich and
its unjustly poor, with its palaces and its slums, its millionaires and its
paupers, be it ours to proclaim that there is a higher ideal in life than that
of being first in the race for wealth, most successful in the scramble for gold.
Be it ours to declare steadfastly that health, comfort, leisure, culture, plenty
for every individual are far more desirable than breathless struggle for
existence, furious trampling down of the weak by the strong, huge fortunes
accumulated out of the toil of others, to be handed down to those who had done
nothing to earn them. Be it ours to maintain that the greatness of a nation
depends not on the number of its great proprietors, on the wealth of its great
capitalists, or the splendour of its great nobles, but on the absence of poverty
among its people, on the education and refinement of its masses, on the
universality of enjoyment in life.... Enough for each of work, of leisure, of
joy; too little for none, too much for none—such is the Social ideal. Better to
strive after it worthily and fail, than to die without striving for it at all."
345.
Then I
differentiated the methods of the Socialist and the Radical Individualist,
pleading for union among those who formed the wings of the army of Labour, and
urging union of all workers against the idlers. For the weakness of the people
has ever been in their divisions, in the readiness of each section to turn its
weapons against other sections instead of against the common foe. All privileged
classes, when they are attacked, sink their differences and present a serried
front to their assailants; the people alone fight with each other, while the
battle between themselves and the privileged is raging.
346.
I strove, as
so many others were striving, to sound in the ears of the thoughtless and the
careless the cry of the sufferings of the poor, endeavouring to make articulate
their misery. Thus in a description of Edinburgh slums came the following: "I
saw in a 'house' which was made by boarding up part of a passage, which had no
window, and in which it was necessary to burn an oil lamp all day, thus adding
to the burden of the rent, a family of three—man, wife, and child—whose lot was
hardly 'of their own making.' The man was tall and bronzed, but he was dying of
heart disease; he could not do hard work, and he was too clumsy for light work;
so he sat there, after two days' fruitless search, patiently nursing his
miserable, scrofulous baby in his dim and narrow den. The cases of individual
hopeless suffering are heartbreaking. In one room lay a dying child, dying of
low fever brought on by want of food. 'It hae no faither,' sobbed the mother;
and for a moment I did not catch the meaning that the father had left to the
mother all the burden of a child unallowed by law. In another lay the corpse of
a mother, with the children round her, and hard-featured, gentle-hearted women
came in to take back to their overcrowded beds 'the mitherless bairns.' In yet
another a woman, shrunken and yellow, crouched over a glimmer of fire; "I am
dying of cancer of the womb," she said, with that pathetic resignation to the
inevitable so common among the poor. I sat chatting for a few minutes. 'Come
again, deary,' she said as I rose to go; 'it's gey dull sitting here the day
through.'"
347.
The article
in which these, among other descriptions, occurred was closed with the
following: "Passing out of the slums into the streets of the town, only a few
steps separating the horror and the beauty, I felt, with a vividness more
intense than ever, the fearful contrasts between the lots of men; and with more
pressing urgency the question seemed to ring in my ears, 'Is there no remedy?
Must there always be rich and poor?' Some say that it must be so; that the
palace and the slum will for ever exist as the light and the shadow. Not so do I
believe. I believe that the poverty is the result of ignorance and of bad social
arrangements, and that therefore it may be eradicated by knowledge and by social
change. I admit that for many of these adult dwellers in the slums there is no
hope. Poor victims of a civilisation that hides its brutality beneath a veneer
of culture and of grace, for them individually there is, alas! no salvation. But
for their children, yes! Healthy surroundings, good food, mental and physical
training, plenty of play, and carefully chosen work—these might save the young
and prepare them for happy life. But they are being left to grow up as their
parents were, and even when a few hours of school are given them the home
half-neutralises what the education effects. The scanty aid given is generally
begrudged, the education is to be but elementary, as little as possible is doled
out. Yet these children have each one of them hopes and fears, possibilities of
virtue and of crime, a life to be made or marred. We shower money on generals
and on nobles, we keep high-born paupers living on the national charity, we
squander wealth with both hands on army and navy, on churches and palaces; but
we grudge every halfpenny that increases the education rate and howl down every
proposal to build decent houses for the poor. We cover our heartlessness and
indifference with fine phrases about sapping the independence of the poor and
destroying their self-respect. With loathsome hypocrisy we repair a prince's
palace for him, and let him live in it rent-free, without one word about the
degradation involved in his thus living upon charity; while we refuse to
'pauperise' the toiler by erecting decent buildings in which he may live—not
rent-free like the prince, but only paying a rent which shall cover the cost of
erection and maintenance, instead of one which gives a yearly profit to a
speculator. And so, year after year, the misery grows, and every great city has
on its womb a cancer; sapping its vitality, poisoning its life-blood. Every
great city is breeding in its slums a race which is reverting through the savage
to the brute—a brute more dangerous in that degraded humanity has possibilities
of evil in it beyond the reach of the mere wild beast. If not for Love's sake,
then for fear; if not for justice or for human pity, then for sheer desire of
self-preservation; I appeal to the wise and to the wealthy to set their hands to
the cure of social evil, ere stolidity gives place to passion and dull patience
vanishes before fury, and they
348.
"'Learn at
last, in some wild hour, how much the wretched dare.'"
349.
Because it
was less hotly antagonistic to the Radicals than the two other Socialist
organisations, I joined the Fabian Society, and worked hard with it as a speaker
and lecturer. Sidney Webb, G. Bernard Shaw, Hubert and Mrs. Bland, Graham
Wallas—these were some of those who gave time, thought, incessant work to the
popularising of Socialist thought, the spreading of sound economics, the effort
to turn the workers' energy toward social rather than merely political reform.
We lectured at workmen's clubs wherever we could gain a hearing, till we
leavened London Radicalism with Socialist thought, and by treating the Radical
as the unevolved Socialist rather than as the anti-Socialist, we gradually won
him over to Socialist views. We circulated questions to be put to all candidates
for parliamentary or other offices, stirred up interest in local elections,
educated men and women into an understanding of the causes of their poverty, won
recruits for the army of propagandists from the younger of the educated middle
class. That the London working classes to-day are so largely Socialist is
greatly due to the years of work done among them by members of the Fabian
Society, as well to the splendid, if occasionally too militant, energy of the
Social Democratic Federation, and to the devotion of that noble and generous
genius, William Morris.
350.
During this
same year (1885) a movement was set on foot in England to draw attention to the
terrible sufferings of the Russian political prisoners, and it was decided at a
meeting held in my house to form a society of the friends of Russia, which
should seek to spread accurate and careful information about the present
condition of Russia. At that meeting were present Charles Bradlaugh, "Stepniak,"
and many others, E.R. Pease acting as honorary secretary. It is noteworthy that
some of the most prominent Russian exiles—such as Kropotkin—take the view that
the Tzar himself is not allowed to know what occurs, and is very largely the
victim of the bureaucracy that surrounds him.
351.
Another
matter, that increased as the months went on, was the attempt of the police
authorities to stop Socialist speaking in the open air. Christians,
Freethinkers, Salvationists, agitators of all kinds were, for the most part,
left alone, but there was a regular crusade against the Socialists. Liberal and
Tory journals alike condemned the way in which in Dod Street, in September, the
Socialists' meetings were attacked. Quiet persistence was shown by the
promoters—members of the Social Democratic Federation—and they were well
supported by other Socialists and by the Radical clubs. I volunteered to speak
on October 4th (my first Sunday in London after the summoning and imprisoning of
the speakers had commenced), but the attitude of the people was so determined on
the preceding Sunday that all interference was withdrawn.
352.
Herbert
Burrows stood for the School Board for the Tower Hamlets in the November of this
year, and I find a paragraph in the Reformer in which I heartily wished
him success, especially as the first candidate who had put forward a demand for
industrial education. In this, as in so many practical proposals, Socialists
have led the way. He polled 4,232 votes, despite the furious opposition of the
clergy to him as a Freethinker, of the publicans to him as a teetotaler, of the
maintainers of the present social system to him as a Socialist. And his fight
did much to make possible my own success in 1888.
353.
With this
autumn, too, began, in connection with the struggle for the right of meeting,
the helping of the workmen to fair trial by providing of bail and legal defence.
The first case that I bailed out was that of Lewis Lyons, sent to gaol for two
months with hard labour by Mr. Saunders, of the Thames Police Court. Oh, the
weary, sickening waiting in the court for "my prisoner," the sordid vice, the
revolting details of human depravity to which my unwilling eyes and ears were
witnesses. I carried Lyons off in triumph, and the Middlesex magistrates quashed
the conviction, the evidence being pronounced by them to be "confusing,
contradictory, and worthless." Yet but for the chance of one of us stepping
forward to offer bail and to provide the means for an appeal (I acted on Mr.
Bradlaugh's suggestion and advice, for he acted as counsellor to me all through
the weary struggles that lasted till 1888, putting his great legal knowledge at
my disposal, though he often disapproved my action, thinking me Quixotic)—but
for this, Lewis Lyons would have had to suffer his heavy sentence.
354.
The general
election took place this autumn, and Northampton returned Mr. Bradlaugh for the
fifth time, thus putting an end to the long struggle, for he took the oath and
his seat in the following January, and at once gave notice of an Oaths Bill, to
give to all who claimed it, under all circumstances, the right to affirm. He was
returned with the largest vote ever polled for him—4,315—and he entered
Parliament with all the prestige of his great struggle, and went to the front at
once, one of the recognised forces in the House. The action of Mr. Speaker Peel
promptly put an end to an attempted obstruction. Sir Michael Hicks Beach, Mr.
Cecil Raikes, and Sir John Hennaway had written to the Speaker asking his
interference, but the Speaker declared that he had no authority, no right to
stand between a duly elected member and the duty of taking the oath prescribed
by statute. Thus ended the constitutional struggle of six years, that left the
victor well-nigh bankrupt in health and in purse, and sent him to a
comparatively early grave. He lived long enough to justify his election, to
prove his value to the House and to his country, but he did not live long enough
to render to England all the services which his long training, his wide
knowledge, his courage, and his honesty so eminently fitted him to yield.
355.
356.
NORWICH
BRANCH OF THE SOCIALIST LEAGUE.
357.
Our Corner
now served as a valuable aid in Socialist propaganda, and its monthly "Socialist
Notes" became a record of Socialist progress in all lands. We were busy during
the spring in organising a conference for the discussion of "The Present
Commercial System, and the Better Utilisation of National Wealth for the Benefit
of the Community," and this was successfully held at South Place Institute on
June 9th, 10th, 11th, the three days being given respectively, to the
"Utilisation of Land," the "Utilisation of Capital," and the "Democratic
Policy." On the 9th Mr. Bradlaugh spoke on the utilisation of waste lands,
arguing that in a thickly populated country no one had the right to keep
cultivable land uncultivated, and that where land was so kept there should be
compulsory expropriation, the state taking the land and letting it out to
cultivating tenants. Among the other speakers were Edward Carpenter, William
Morris, Sidney Webb, John Robertson, William Saunders, W. Donnisthorpe, Edward
Aveling, Charlotte Wilson, Mrs. Fenwick Miller, Hubert Bland, Dr. Pankhurst, and
myself—men and women of many views, met to compare methods, and so help on the
cause of social regeneration.
358.
Bitter
attacks were made on me for my Socialist advocacy by some of the Radicals in the
Freethought party, and looking back I find myself condemned as a "Saint
Athanasius in petticoats," and as possessing a "mind like a milk-jug." This same
courteous critic remarked, "I have heard Mrs. Besant described as being, like
most women, at the mercy of her last male acquaintance for her views on
economics." I was foolish enough to break a lance in self-defence with this
assailant, not having then learned that self-defence was a waste of time that
might be better employed in doing work for others. I certainly should not now
take the trouble to write such a paragraph as the following: "The moment a man
uses a woman's sex to discredit her arguments, the thoughtful reader knows that
he is unable to answer the arguments themselves. But really these silly sneers
at woman's ability have lost their force, and are best met with a laugh at the
stupendous 'male self-conceit' of the writer. I may add that such shafts are
specially pointless against myself. A woman who thought her way out of
Christianity and Whiggism into Freethought and Radicalism absolutely alone; who
gave up every old friend, male and female, rather than resign the beliefs she
had struggled to in solitude; who, again, in embracing active Socialism, has run
counter to the views of her nearest 'male friends'; such a woman may very likely
go wrong, but I think she may venture, without conceit, to at least claim
independence of judgment. I did not make the acquaintance of one of my present
Socialist comrades, male or female, until I had embraced Socialism." A foolish
paragraph, as are all self-defences, and a mischievous one, as all retort breeds
fresh strife. But not yet had come the self-control that estimates the judgments
of others at their true value, that recks not of praise and blame; not yet had I
learned that evil should not be met with evil, wrath with wrath; not yet were
the words of the Buddha the law to which I strove to render obedience: "Hatred
ceases not by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love." The year 1886 was a
terrible one for labour, everywhere reductions of wages, everywhere increase of
the numbers of the unemployed; turning over the pages of Our Corner, I
see "Socialist Notes" filled, month after month, with a monotonous tale, "there
is a reduction of wages at" such and such a place; so many "men have been
discharged at —-, owing to the slackness of trade." Our hearts sank lower and
lower as summer passed into autumn, and the coming winter threatened to add to
starvation the bitter pains of cold. The agitation for the eight hours' day
increased in strength as the unemployed grew more numerous week by week "We
can't stand it," a sturdy, quiet fellow had said to me during the preceding
winter; "flesh and blood can't stand it, and two months of this bitter cold,
too." "We may as well starve idle as starve working," had said another, with a
fierce laugh. And a spirit of sullen discontent was spreading everywhere,
discontent that was wholly justified by facts. But ah! how patient they were for
the most part, how sadly, pathetically patient, this crucified Christ, Humanity;
wrongs that would set my heart and my tongue afire would be accepted as a matter
of course. O blind and mighty people, how my heart went out to you; trampled on,
abused, derided, asking so little and needing so much; so pathetically grateful
for the pettiest services; so loving and so loyal to those who offered you but
their poor services and helpless love. Deeper and deeper into my innermost
nature ate the growing desire to succour, to suffer for, to save. I had long
given up my social reputation, I now gave up with ever-increasing surrender
ease, comfort, time; the passion of pity grew stronger and stronger, fed by each
new sacrifice, and each sacrifice led me nearer and nearer to the threshold of
that gateway beyond which stretched a path of renunciation I had never dreamed
of, which those might tread who were ready wholly to strip off self for Man's
sake, who for Love's sake would surrender Love's return from those they served,
and would go out into the darkness for themselves that they might, with their
own souls as fuel, feed the Light of the World.
359.
As the
suffering deepened with the darkening months, the meetings of the unemployed
grew in number, and the murmurs of discontent became louder. The Social
Democratic Federation carried on an outdoor agitation, not without making
blunders, being composed of human beings, but with abundant courage and
self-sacrifice. The policy of breaking up Socialist meetings went on while other
meetings were winked at, and John Williams, a fiery speaker, but a man with a
record of pathetic struggle and patient heroism, was imprisoned for two months
for speaking in the open air, and so nearly starved in gaol that he came out
with his health broken for life.
(1)
1887 dawned,
the year that was to close so stormily, and Socialists everywhere were busying
themselves on behalf of the unemployed, urging vestries to provide remunerative
work for those applying for relief, assailing the Local Government Board with
practicable proposals for utilising the productive energies of the unemployed,
circulating suggestions to municipalities and other local representative bodies,
urging remedial measures. A four days' oral debate with Mr. Foote, and a written
debate with Mr. Bradlaugh, occupied some of my energies, and helped in the
process of education to which public opinion was being subjected. Both these
debates were largely circulated as pamphlets. A series of afternoon debates
between representative speakers was organised at South Place Institute, and Mr.
Corrie Grant and myself had a lively discussion, I affirming "That the existence
of classes who live upon unearned incomes is detrimental to the welfare of the
community, and ought to be put an end to by legislation." Another debate—in this
very quarrelsome spring of 1887—was a written one in the National Reformer
between the Rev. G.F. Handel Rowe and myself on the proposition, "Is Atheism
logically tenable, and is there a satisfactory Atheistic System for the guidance
of Human Conduct." And so the months went on, and the menace of misery grew
louder and louder, till in September I find myself writing: "This one thing is
clear—Society must deal with the unemployed, or the unemployed will deal with
Society. Stormier and stormier becomes the social outlook, and they at least are
not the worst enemies of Society who seek to find some way through the breakers
by which the ship of the Commonwealth may pass into quiet waters."
360.
Some
amusement turned up in the shape of a Charing Cross Parliament, in which we
debated with much vigour the "burning questions" of the day. We organised a
compact Socialist party, defeated a Liberal Government, took the reins of
office, and—after a Queen's Speech in which her Majesty addressed her loyal
Commons with a plainness of speech never before (or since) heard from the
throne—we brought in several Bills of a decidedly heroic character. G. Bernard
Shaw, as President of the Local Government Board, and I, as Home Secretary, came
in for a good deal of criticism in connection with various drastic measures. An
International Freethought Congress, held in London, entailed fairly heavy work,
and the science classes were ever with us. Another written debate came with
October, this time on the "Teachings of Christianity," making the fifth of these
set discussions held by me during the year. This same month brought a change,
painful but just: I resigned my much-prized position as co-editor of the
National Reformer, and the number for October 23rd bore Charles Bradlaugh's
name alone. The change did not affect my work on the paper, but I became merely
a subordinate, though remaining, of course, joint proprietor. The reason cannot
be more accurately given than in the paragraph penned at the time: "For a
considerable time past, and lately in increasing number, complaints have reached
me from various quarters of the inconvenience and uncertainty that result from
the divided editorial policy of this paper on the question of Socialism. Some
months ago I proposed to avoid this difficulty by resigning my share in the
editorship; but my colleague, with characteristic liberality, asked me to let
the proposal stand over and see if matters would not adjust themselves. But the
difficulty, instead of disappearing, has only become more pressing; and we both
feel that our readers have a right to demand that it be solved.
361.
"When I
became co-editor of this paper I was not a Socialist; and, although I regard
Socialism as the necessary and logical outcome of the Radicalism which for so
many years the National Reformer has taught, still, as in avowing myself
a Socialist I have taken a distinct step, the partial separation of my policy in
labour questions from that of my colleague has been of my own making, and not of
his, and it is, therefore, for me to go away. Over by far the greater part of
our sphere of action we are still substantially agreed, and are likely to remain
so. But since, as Socialism becomes more and more a question of practical
politics, differences of theory tend to produce differences in conduct; and
since a political paper must have a single editorial programme in practical
politics, it would obviously be most inconvenient for me to retain my position
as co-editor. I therefore resume my former position as contributor only, thus
clearing the National Reformer of all responsibility for the views I
hold."
362.
To this Mr.
Bradlaugh added the following:—
363.
"I need
hardly add to this how very deeply I regret the necessity for Mrs. Besant's
resignation of the joint editorship of this Journal, and the real grief I feel
in accepting this break in a position in which she has rendered such enormous
service to the Freethought and Radical cause. As a most valued contributor I
trust the National Reformer may never lose the efficient aid of her brain
and pen. For thirteen years this paper has been richer for good by the measure
of her never-ceasing and most useful work. I agree with her that a journal must
have a distinct editorial policy; and I think this distinctness the more
necessary when, as in the present case, every contributor has the greatest
freedom of expression. I recognise in the fullest degree the spirit of
self-sacrifice in which the lines, to which I add these words, have been penned
by Mrs. Besant.
364.
"CHARLES
BRADLAUGH."
365.
It was a
wrench, this breaking of a tie for which a heavy price had been paid thirteen
years before, but it was just. Any one who makes a change with which pain is
connected is bound, in honour and duty, to take that pain as much as possible on
himself; he must not put his sacrifice on others, nor pay his own ransom with
their coin. There must be honour kept in the life that reaches towards the
Ideal, for broken faith to that is the only real infidelity.
366.
And there was
another reason for the change that I dared not name to him, for his quick
loyalty would then have made him stubbornly determined against change. I saw the
swift turning of public opinion, the gradual approach to him among Liberals who
had hitherto held aloof, and I knew that they looked upon me as a clog and a
burden, and that were I less prominently with him his way would be the easier to
tread. So I slipped more and more into the background, no longer went with him
to his meetings; my use to him in public was over, for I had become hindrance
instead of help. While he was outcast and hated I had the pride of standing at
his side; when all the fair-weather friends came buzzing round him I served him
best by self-effacement, and I never loved him better than when I stood aside.
But I continued all the literary work unaltered, and no change of opinions
touched his kindness to me, although when, a little later, I joined the
Theosophical Society, he lost his trust in my reasoning powers and judgment.
367.
In this same
month of October the unemployed began walking in procession through the streets,
and harshness on the part of the police led to some rioting. Sir Charles Warren
thought it his duty to dragoon London meetings after the fashion of Continental
prefects, with the inevitable result that an ill-feeling grew up between the
people and the police.
368.
At last we
formed a Socialist Defence Association, in order to help poor workmen brought up
and sentenced on police evidence only, without any chance being given them of
proper legal defence, and I organised a band of well-to-do men and women, who
promised to obey a telegraphic summons, night or day, and to bail out any
prisoner arrested for exercising the ancient right of walking in procession and
speaking. To take one instance: Mr. Burleigh, the well-known war correspondent,
and Mr. Winks were arrested and "run in" with Mr. J. Knight, a workman, for
seditious language. I went down to the police-station to offer bail for the
latter: Chief-Constable Howard accepted bail for Messrs. Burleigh and Winks, but
refused it for Mr. Knight. The next day, at the police-court, the preposterous
bail of £400 was demanded for Mr. Knight and supplied by my faithful band, and
on the next hearing Mr. Poland, solicitor to the Treasury, withdrew the charge
against him for lack of evidence!
369.
Then came the
closing of Trafalgar Square, and the unexpected and high-handed order that cost
some men their lives, many their liberty, and hundreds the most serious
injuries. The Metropolitan Radical Federation had called a meeting for November
13th to protest against the imprisonment of Mr. O'Brien, and as Mr. Matthews,
from his place in the House, had stated that there was no intention of
interfering with bonâ fide political meetings, the Radical clubs did not
expect police interference. On November 9th Sir Charles Warren had issued an
order forbidding all meetings in the Square, but the clubs trusted the promise
of the Home Secretary. On Saturday evening only, November 12th, when all
arrangements were completed, did he issue a peremptory order, forbidding
processions within a certain area. With this trap suddenly sprung upon them, the
delegates from the clubs, the Fabian Society, the Social Democratic Federation,
and the Socialist League, met on that same Saturday evening to see to any
details that had been possibly left unsettled. It was finally decided to go to
the Square as arranged, and, if challenged by the police, to protest formally
against the illegal interference, then to break up the processions and leave the
members to find their own way to the Square. It was also decided to go Sunday
after Sunday to the Square, until the right of public meetings was vindicated.
370.
The
procession I was in started from Clerkenwell Green, and walked with its banner
in front, and the chosen speakers, including myself, immediately behind the
flag. As we were moving slowly and quietly along one of the narrow streets
debouching on Trafalgar Square, wondering whether we should be challenged, there
was a sudden charge, and without a word the police were upon us with uplifted
truncheons; the banner was struck down, and men and women were falling under a
hail of blows. There was no attempt at resistance, the people were too much
astounded at the unprepared attack. They scattered, leaving some of their number
on the ground too much injured to move, and then made their way in twos and
threes to the Square. It was garrisoned by police, drawn up in serried rows,
that could only have been broken by a deliberate charge. Our orders were to
attempt no violence, and we attempted none. Mr. Cunninghame Graham and Mr. John
Burns, arm-in-arm, tried to pass through the police, and were savagely cut about
the head and arrested. Then ensued a scene to be remembered; the horse police
charged in squadrons at a hand-gallop, rolling men and women over like ninepins,
while the foot police struck recklessly with their truncheons, cutting a road
through the crowd that closed immediately behind them. I got on a waggonette and
tried to persuade the driver to pull his trap across one of the roads, and to
get others in line, so as to break the charges of the mounted police; but he was
afraid, and drove away to the Embankment, so I jumped out and went back to the
Square. At last a rattle of cavalry, and up came the Life Guards, cleverly
handled but hurting none, trotting their horses gently and shouldering the crowd
apart; and then the Scots Guards with bayonets fixed marched through and
occupied the north of the Square. Then the people retreated as we passed round
the word, "Go home, go home." The soldiers were ready to fire, the people
unarmed; it would have been but a massacre. Slowly the Square emptied and all
was still. All other processions were treated as ours had been, and the injuries
inflicted were terrible. Peaceable, law-abiding workmen, who had never dreamed
of rioting, were left with broken legs, broken arms, wounds of every
description. One man, Linnell, died almost immediately, others from the effect
of their injuries. The next day a regular court-martial in Bow Street Police
Court, witnesses kept out by the police, men dazed with their wounds, decent
workmen of unblemished character who had never been charged in a police-court
before, sentenced to imprisonment without chance of defence. But a gallant band
rallied to their rescue. William T. Stead, most chivalrous of journalists,
opened a Defence Fund, and money rained in; my pledged bail came up by the
dozen, and we got the men out on appeal. By sheer audacity I got into the
police-court, addressed the magistrate, too astounded by my profound courtesy
and calm assurance to remember that I had no right there, and then produced bail
after bail of the most undeniable character and respectability, which no
magistrate could refuse. Breathing-time gained, a barrister, Mr. W.M. Thompson,
worked day after day with hearty devotion, and took up the legal defence. Fines
we paid, and here Mrs. Marx Aveling did eager service. A pretty regiment I led
out of Millbank Prison, after paying their fines; bruised, clothes torn,
hatless, we must have looked a disreputable lot. We stopped and bought hats, to
throw an air of respectability over our cortège, and we kept together
until I saw the men into train and omnibus, lest, with the bitter feelings now
roused, conflict should again arise. We formed the Law and Liberty League to
defend all unjustly assailed by the police, and thus rescued many a man from
prison; and we gave poor Linnell, killed in Trafalgar Square, a public funeral.
Sir Charles Warren forbade the passing of the hearse through any of the main
thoroughfares west of Waterloo Bridge, so the processions waited there for it.
W.T. Stead, R. Cunninghame Graham, Herbert Burrows, and myself walked on one
side the coffin, William Morris, F. Smith, R. Dowling, and J. Seddon on the
other; the Rev. Stewart D. Headlam, the officiating clergyman, walked in front;
fifty stewards carrying long wands guarded the coffin. From Wellington Street to
Bow Cemetery the road was one mass of human beings, who uncovered reverently as
the slain man went by; at Aldgate the procession took three-quarters of an hour
to pass one spot, and thus we bore Linnell to his grave, symbol of a cruel
wrong, the vast orderly, silent crowd, bareheaded, making mute protest against
the outrage wrought.
371.
It is
pleasant to put on record here Mr. Bradlaugh's grave approval of the heavy work
done in the police-courts, and the following paragraph shows how generously he
could praise one not acting on his own lines: "As I have on most serious matters
of principle recently differed very widely from my brave and loyal co-worker,
and as the difference has been regrettably emphasised by her resignation of her
editorial functions on this Journal, it is the more necessary that I should say
how thoroughly I approve, and how grateful I am to her for, her conduct in not
only obtaining bail and providing legal assistance for the helpless unfortunates
in the hands of the police, but also for her daily personal attendance and wise
conduct at the police-stations and police-courts, where she has done so much to
abate harsh treatment on the one hand and rash folly on the other. While I
should not have marked out this as fitting woman's work, especially in the
recent very inclement weather, I desire to record my view that it has been
bravely done, well done, and most usefully done, and I wish to mark this the
more emphatically as my views and those of Mrs. Besant seem wider apart than I
could have deemed possible on many of the points of principle underlying what is
every day growing into a most serious struggle." Ever did I find Charles
Bradlaugh thus tolerant of difference of opinion, generously eager to approve
what to him seemed right even in a policy he disapproved.
372.
The
indignation grew and grew; the police were silently boycotted, but the people
were so persistent and so tactful that no excuse for violence was given, until
the strain on the police force began to tell, and the Tory Government felt that
London was being hopelessly alienated; so at last Sir Charles Warren fell, and a
wiser hand was put at the helm.
(1) CHAPTER XIV.
373.
THROUGH STORM
TO PEACE.
374.
Out of all
this turmoil and stress rose a Brotherhood that had in it the promise of a
fairer day. Mr. Stead and I had become close friends—he Christian, I Atheist,
burning with one common love for man, one common hatred against oppression. And
so in Our Corner for February, 1888, I wrote:—"Lately there has been
dawning on the minds of men far apart in questions of theology, the idea of
founding a new Brotherhood, in which service of Man should take the place
erstwhile given to service of God—a brotherhood in which work should be worship
and love should be baptism, in which none should be regarded as alien who was
willing to work for human good. One day as I was walking towards Millbank Gaol
with the Rev. S.D. Headlam, on the way to liberate a prisoner, I said to him:
'Mr. Headlam, we ought to have a new Church, which should include all who have
the common ground of faith in and love for man.' And a little later I found that
my friend Mr. W.T. Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, had long been
brooding over a similar thought, and wondering whether men 'might not be
persuaded to be as earnest about making this world happy as they are over saving
their souls.' The teaching of social duty, the upholding of social
righteousness, the building up of a true commonwealth—such would be among the
aims of the Church of the future. Is the hope too fair for realisation? Is the
winning of such beatific vision yet once more the dream of the enthusiast? But
surely the one fact that persons so deeply differing in theological creeds as
those who have been toiling for the last three months to aid and relieve the
oppressed, can work in absolute harmony side by side for the one end—surely this
proves that there is a bond which is stronger than our antagonisms, a unity
which is deeper than the speculative theories which divide."
375.
How
unconsciously I was marching towards the Theosophy which was to become the glory
of my life, groping blindly in the darkness for that very brotherhood,
definitely formulated on these very lines by those Elder Brothers of our race,
at whose feet I was so soon to throw myself. How deeply this longing for
something loftier than I had yet found had wrought itself into my life, how
strong the conviction was growing that there was something to be sought to which
the service of man was the road, may be seen in the following passage from the
same article:—
376.
"It has been
thought that in these days of factories and of tramways, of shoddy, and of
adulteration, that all life must tread with even rhythm of measured footsteps,
and that the glory of the ideal could no longer glow over the greyness of a
modern horizon. But signs are not awanting that the breath of the older heroism
is beginning to stir men's breasts, and that the passion for justice and for
liberty, which thrilled through the veins of the world's greatest in the past,
and woke our pulses to responsive throb, has not yet died wholly out of the
hearts of men. Still the quest of the Holy Grail exercises its deathless
fascination, but the seekers no longer raise eyes to heaven, nor search over
land and sea, for they know that it waits them in the suffering at their doors,
that the consecration of the holiest is on the agonising masses of the poor and
the despairing, the cup is crimson with the blood of the
(1)
"'People, the
grey-grown speechless Christ.'
377.
... If there
be a faith that can remove the mountains of ignorance and evil, it is surely
that faith in the ultimate triumph of Right in the final enthronement of
Justice, which alone makes life worth the living, and which gems the blackest
cloud of depression with the rainbow-coloured arch of an immortal hope."
378.
As a step
towards bringing about some such union of those ready to work for man, Mr. Stead
and I projected the Link, a halfpenny weekly, the spirit of which was
described in its motto, taken from Victor Hugo: "The people are silence. I will
be the advocate of this silence. I will speak for the dumb. I will speak of the
small to the great and of the feeble to the strong.... I will speak for all the
despairing silent ones. I will interpret this stammering; I will interpret the
grumblings, the murmurs, the tumults of crowds, the complaints ill-pronounced,
and all these cries of beasts that, through ignorance and through suffering, man
is forced to utter ... I will be the Word of the People. I will be the bleeding
mouth whence the gag is snatched out. I will say everything." It announced its
object to be the "building up" of a "New Church, dedicated to the service of
man," and "what we want to do is to establish in every village and in every
street some man or woman who will sacrifice time and labour as systematically
and as cheerfully in the temporal service of man as others do in what they
believe to be the service of God." Week after week we issued our little paper,
and it became a real light in the darkness. There the petty injustices inflicted
on the poor found voice; there the starvation wages paid to women found
exposure; there sweating was brought to public notice. A finisher of boots paid
2s. 6d. per dozen pairs and "find your own polish and thread"; women working for
10½ hours per day, making shirts—"fancy best"—at from 10d. to 3s. per dozen,
finding their own cotton and needles, paying for gas, towel, and tea
(compulsory), earning from 4s. to 10s. per week for the most part; a mantle
finisher 2s. 2d. a week, out of which 6d. for materials; "respectable
hard-working woman" tried for attempted suicide, "driven to rid herself of life
from want." Another part of our work was defending people from unjust landlords,
exposing workhouse scandals, enforcing the Employers' Liability Act, Charles
Bradlaugh's Truck Act, forming "Vigilance Circles" whose members kept watch in
their own district over cases of cruelty to children, extortion, insanitary
workshops, sweating, &c., reporting each case to me. Into this work came Herbert
Burrows, who had joined hands with me over the Trafalgar Square defence, and who
wrote some noble articles in the Link. A man loving the people with
passionate devotion, hating oppression and injustice with equal passion, working
himself with remorseless energy, breaking his heart over wrongs he could not
remedy. His whole character once came out in a sentence when he was lying
delirious and thought himself dying: "Tell the people how I have loved them
always."
379.
In our
crusade for the poor we worked for the dockers." To-morrow morning, in London
alone 20,000 to 25,000 adult men," wrote Sidney Webb, "will fight like savages
for permission to labour in the docks for 4d. an hour, and one-third of them
will fight in vain, and be turned workless away." We worked for children's
dinners. "If we insist on these children being educated, is it not necessary
that they shall be fed? If not, we waste on them knowledge they cannot
assimilate, and torture many of them to death. Poor waifs of humanity, we drive
them into the school and bid them learn; and the pitiful, wistful eyes question
us why we inflict this strange new suffering, and bring into their dim lives
this new pang. 'Why not leave us alone? 'ask the pathetically patient little
faces. Why not, indeed, since for these child martyrs of the slums, Society has
only formulas, not food." We cried out against "cheap goods," that meant
"sweated and therefore stolen goods." "The ethics of buying should surely be
simply enough. We want a particular thing, and we do not desire to obtain it
either by begging or by robbery; but if in becoming possessed of it, we neither
beg it nor steal, we must give for it something equivalent in exchange; so much
of our neighbour's labour has been put into the thing we desire; if we will not
yield him fair equivalent for that labour, yet take his article, we defraud him,
and if we are not willing to give that fair equivalent we have no right to
become the owners of his product."
380.
This branch
of our work led to a big fight—a fight most happy in its results. At a meeting
of the Fabian Society, Miss Clementina Black gave a capital lecture on Female
Labour, and urged the formation of a Consumers' League, pledged only to buy from
shops certificated "clean" from unfair wage. H.H. Champion, in the discussion
that followed, drew attention to the wages paid by Bryant & May (Limited), while
paying an enormous dividend to their shareholders, so that the value of the
original £5 shares was quoted at £18 7s. 6d. Herbert Burrows and I interviewed
some of the girls, got lists of wages, of fines, &c. "A typical case is that of
a girl of sixteen, a piece-worker; she earns 4s. a week, and lives with a
sister, employed by the same firm, who 'earns good money, as much as 8s. or 9s.
a week.' Out of the earnings 2s. a week is paid for the rent of one room. The
child lives only on bread and butter and tea, alike for breakfast and dinner,
but related with dancing eyes that once a month she went to a meal where 'you
get coffee and bread and butter, and jam and marmalade, and lots of it.'" We
published the facts under the title of "White Slavery in London," and called for
a boycott of Bryant & May's matches. "It is time some one came and helped us,"
said two pale-faced girls to me; and I asked: "Who will help? Plenty of people
wish well to any good cause; but very few care to exert themselves to help it,
and still fewer will risk anything in its support. 'Some one ought to do it, but
why should I?' is the ever re-echoed phrase of weak-kneed amiability. 'Some one
ought to do it, so why not I?' is the cry of some earnest servant of man,
eagerly forward springing to face some perilous duty. Between those two
sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution."
381.
I was
promptly threatened with an action for libel, but nothing came of it; it was
easier to strike at the girls, and a few days later Fleet Street was enlivened
by the irruption of a crowd of match-girls, demanding Annie Besant. I couldn't
speechify to match-girls in Fleet Street, so asked that a deputation should come
and explain what they wanted. Up came three women and told their story: they had
been asked to sign a paper certifying that they were well treated and contented,
and that my statements were untrue; they refused. "You had spoke up for us,"
explained one, "and we weren't going back on you." A girl, pitched on as their
leader, was threatened with dismissal; she stood firm; next day she was
discharged for some trifle, and they all threw down their work, some 1,400 of
them, and then a crowd of them started off to me to ask what to do next. If we
ever worked in our lives, Herbert Burrows and I worked for the next fortnight.
And a pretty hubbub we created; we asked for money, and it came pouring in; we
registered the girls to receive strike pay, wrote articles, roused the clubs,
held public meetings, got Mr. Bradlaugh to ask questions in Parliament, stirred
up constituencies in which shareholders were members, till the whole country
rang with the struggle. Mr. Frederick Charrington lent us a hall for
registration, Mr. Sidney Webb and others moved the National Liberal Club to
action; we led a procession of the girls to the House of Commons, and
interviewed, with a deputation of them, Members of Parliament who
cross-questioned them. The girls behaved splendidly, stuck together, kept brave
and bright all through. Mr. Hobart of the Social Democratic Federation, Messrs.
Shaw, Bland, and Oliver, and Headlam of the Fabian Society, Miss Clementina
Black, and many another helped in the heavy work. The London Trades Council
finally consented to act as arbitrators and a satisfactory settlement was
arrived at; the girls went in to work, fines and deductions were abolished,
better wages paid; the Match-makers' Union was established, still the strongest
woman's Trades Union in England, and for years I acted as secretary, till, under
press of other duties, I resigned, and my work was given by the girls to Mrs.
Thornton Smith; Herbert Burrows became, and still is, the treasurer. For a time
there was friction between the Company and the Union, but it gradually
disappeared under the influence of common sense on both sides, and we have found
the manager ready to consider any just grievance and to endeavour to remove it,
while the Company have been liberal supporters of the Working Women's Club at
Bow, founded by H.P. Blavatsky.
382.
383.
STRIKE
COMMITTEE OF THE MATCHMAKERS' UNION.
384.
The worst
suffering of all was among the box-makers, thrown out of work by the strike, and
they were hard to reach. Twopence-farthing per gross of boxes, and buy your own
string and paste, is not wealth, but when the work went more rapid starvation
came. Oh, those trudges through the lanes and alleys round Bethnal Green
Junction late at night, when our day's work was over; children lying about on
shavings, rags, anything; famine looking out of baby faces, out of women's eyes,
out of the tremulous hands of men. Heart grew sick and eyes dim, and ever louder
sounded the question, "Where is the cure for sorrow, what the way of rescue for
the world?"
385.
In August I
asked for a "match-girls' drawing-room." "It will want a piano, tables for
papers, for games, for light literature; so that it may offer a bright, homelike
refuge to these girls, who now have no real homes, no playground save the
streets. It is not proposed to build an 'institution' with stern and rigid
discipline and enforcement of prim behaviour, but to open a home, filled with
the genial atmosphere of cordial comradeship, and self-respecting freedom—the
atmosphere so familiar to all who have grown up in the blessed shelter of a
happy home, so strange, alas! to too many of our East London girls." In the same
month of August, two years later, H.P. Blavatsky opened such a home.
386.
Then came a
cry for help from South London, from tin-box makers, illegally fined, and in
many cases grievously mutilated by the non-fencing of machinery; then aid to
shop assistants, also illegally fined; legal defences by the score still
continued; a vigorous agitation for a free meal for children, and for fair wages
to be paid by all public bodies; work for the dockers and exposure of their
wrongs; a visit to the Cradley Heath chain-makers, speeches to them, writing for
them; a contest for the School Board for the Tower Hamlets division, and
triumphant return at the head of the poll. Such were some of the ways in which
the autumn days were spent, to say nothing of scores of lectures—Secularist,
Labour, Socialist—and scores of articles written for the winning of daily bread.
When the School Board work was added I felt that I had as much work as one
woman's strength could do.
387.
Thus was
ushered in 1889, the to me never-to-be-forgotten year in which I found my way
"Home," and had the priceless good fortune of meeting, and of becoming the pupil
of, H.P. Blavatsky. Ever more and more had been growing on me the feeling that
something more than I had was needed for the cure of social ills. The Socialist
position sufficed on the economic side, but where to gain the inspiration, the
motive, which should lead to the realisation of the Brotherhood of Man? Our
efforts to really organise bands of unselfish workers had failed. Much indeed
had been done, but there was not a real movement of self-sacrificing devotion,
in which men worked for Love's sake only, and asked but to give, not to take.
Where was the material for the nobler Social Order, where the hewn stones for
the building of the Temple of Man? A great despair would oppress me as I sought
for such a movement and found it not.
388.
389.
MEMBERS OF
THE MATCHMAKERS' UNION.
390.
Not only so;
but since 1886 there had been slowly growing up a conviction that my philosophy
was not sufficient; that life and mind were other than, more than, I had
dreamed. Psychology was advancing with rapid strides; hypnotic experiments were
revealing unlooked-for complexities in human consciousness, strange riddles of
multiplex personalities, and, most startling of all, vivid intensities of mental
action when the brain, that should be the generator of thought, was reduced to a
comatose state. Fact after fact came hurtling in upon me, demanding explanation
I was incompetent to give. I studied the obscurer sides of consciousness,
dreams, hallucinations, illusions, insanity. Into the darkness shot a ray of
light—A.P. Sinnett's "Occult World," with its wonderfully suggestive letters,
expounding not the supernatural but a nature under law, wider than I had dared
to conceive. I added Spiritualism to my studies, experimenting privately,
finding the phenomena indubitable, but the spiritualistic explanation of them
incredible. The phenomena of clairvoyance, clairaudience, thought-reading, were
found to be real. Under all the rush of the outer life, already sketched, these
questions were working in my mind, their answers were being diligently sought. I
read a variety of books, but could find little in them that satisfied me. I
experimented in various ways suggested in them, and got some (to me) curious
results. I finally convinced myself that there was some hidden thing, some
hidden power, and resolved to seek until I found, and by the early spring of
1889 I had grown desperately determined to find at all hazards what I sought. At
last, sitting alone in deep thought as I had become accustomed to do after the
sun had set, filled with an intense but nearly hopeless longing to solve the
riddle of life and mind, I heard a Voice that was later to become to me the
holiest sound on earth, bidding me take courage for the light was near. A
fortnight passed, and then Mr. Stead gave into my hands two large volumes. "Can
you review these? My young men all fight shy of them, but you are quite mad
enough on these subjects to make something of them." I took the books; they were
the two volumes of "The Secret Doctrine," written by H.P. Blavatsky.
391.
Home I
carried my burden, and sat me down to read. As I turned over page after page the
interest became absorbing; but how familiar it seemed; how my mind leapt forward
to presage the conclusions, how natural it was, how coherent, how subtle, and
yet how intelligible. I was dazzled, blinded by the light in which disjointed
facts were seen as parts of a mighty whole, and all my puzzles, riddles,
problems, seemed to disappear. The effect was partially illusory in one sense,
in that they all had to be slowly unravelled later, the brain gradually
assimilating that which the swift intuition had grasped as truth. But the light
had been seen, and in that flash of illumination I knew that the weary search
was over and the very Truth was found.
392.
I wrote the
review, and asked Mr. Stead for an introduction to the writer, and then sent a
note asking to be allowed to call. I received the most cordial of notes, bidding
me come, and in the soft spring evening Herbert Burrows and I—for his
aspirations were as mine on this matter—walked from Netting Hill Station,
wondering what we should meet, to the door of 17, Lansdowne Road. A pause, a
swift passing through hall and outer room, through folding-doors thrown back, a
figure in a large chair before a table, a voice, vibrant, compelling, "My dear
Mrs. Besant, I have so long wished to see you," and I was standing with my hand
in her firm grip, and looking for the first time in this life straight into the
eyes of "H.P.B." I was conscious of a sudden leaping forth of my heart—was it
recognition?—and then, I am ashamed to say, a fierce rebellion, a fierce
withdrawal, as of some wild animal when it feels a mastering hand. I sat down,
after some introductions that conveyed no ideas to me, and listened. She talked
of travels, of various countries, easy brilliant talk, her eyes veiled, her
exquisitely moulded fingers rolling cigarettes incessantly. Nothing special to
record, no word of Occultism, nothing mysterious, a woman of the world chatting
with her evening visitors. We rose to go, and for a moment the veil lifted, and
two brilliant, piercing eyes met mine, and with a yearning throb in the voice:
"Oh, my dear Mrs. Besant, if you would only come among us!" I felt a well-nigh
uncontrollable desire to bend down and kiss her, under the compulsion of that
yearning voice, those compelling eyes, but with a flash of the old unbending
pride and an inward jeer at my own folly, I said a commonplace polite good-bye,
and turned away with some inanely courteous and evasive remark. "Child," she
said to me long afterwards, "your pride is terrible; you are as proud as Lucifer
himself." But truly I think I never showed it to her again after that first
evening, though it sprang up wrathfully in her defence many and many a time,
until I learned the pettiness and the worthlessness of all criticism, and knew
that the blind were objects of compassion not of scorn.
393.
Once again I
went, and asked about the Theosophical Society, wishful to join, but fighting
against it. For I saw, distinct and clear—with painful distinctness, indeed—what
that joining would mean. I had largely conquered public prejudice against me by
my work on the London School Board, and a smoother road stretched before me,
whereon effort to help should be praised not blamed. Was I to plunge into a new
vortex of strife, and make myself a mark for ridicule—worse than hatred—and
fight again the weary fight for an unpopular truth? Must I turn against
Materialism, and face the shame of publicly confessing that I had been wrong,
misled by intellect to ignore the Soul? Must I leave the army that had battled
for me so bravely, the friends who through all brutality of social ostracism had
held me dear and true? And he, the strongest and truest friend of all, whose
confidence I had shaken by my Socialism—must he suffer the pang of seeing his
co-worker, his co-fighter, of whom he had been so proud, to whom he had been so
generous, go over to the opposing hosts, and leave the ranks of Materialism?
What would be the look in Charles Bradlaugh's eyes when I told him that I had
become a Theosophist? The struggle was sharp and keen, but with none of the
anguish of old days in it, for the soldier had now fought many fights and was
hardened by many wounds. And so it came to pass that I went again to Lansdowne
Road to ask about the Theosophical Society. H.P. Blavatsky looked at me
piercingly for a moment. "Have you read the report about me of the Society for
Psychical Research?" "No; I never heard of it, so far as I know." "Go and read
it, and if, after reading it, you come back—well." And nothing more would she
say on the subject, but branched off to her experiences in many lands.
394.
I borrowed a
copy of the Report, read and re-read it. Quickly I saw how slender was the
foundation on which the imposing structure was built. The continual assumptions
on which conclusions were based; the incredible character of the allegations;
and—most damning fact of all—the foul source from which the evidence was
derived. Everything turned on the veracity of the Coulombs, and they were
self-stamped as partners in the alleged frauds. Could I put such against the
frank, fearless nature that I had caught a glimpse of, against the proud fiery
truthfulness that shone at me from the clear, blue eyes, honest and fearless as
those of a noble child? Was the writer of "The Secret Doctrine" this miserable
impostor, this accomplice of tricksters, this foul and loathsome deceiver, this
conjuror with trap-doors and sliding panels? I laughed aloud at the absurdity
and flung the Report aside with the righteous scorn of an honest nature that
knew its own kin when it met them, and shrank from the foulness and baseness of
a lie. The next day saw me at the Theosophical Publishing Company's office at 7,
Duke Street, Adelphi, where Countess Wachtmeister—one of the lealest of H.P.B.'s
friends—was at work, and I signed an application to be admitted as fellow of the
Theosophical Society.
395.
On receiving
my diploma I betook myself to Lansdowne Road, where I found H.P.B. alone. I went
over to her, bent down and kissed her, but said no word. "You have joined the
Society?" "Yes." "You have read the report?" "Yes." "Well?" I knelt down before
her and clasped her hands in mine, looking straight into her eyes. "My answer
is, will you accept me as your pupil, and give me the honour of proclaiming you
my teacher in the face of the world?" Her stern, set face softened, the unwonted
gleam of tears sprang to her eyes; then, with a dignity more than regal, she
placed her hand upon my head. "You are a noble woman. May Master bless you."
396.
From that
day, the 10th of May, 1889, until now—two years three and half months after she
left her body on May 8, 1891—my faith in her has never wavered, my trust in her
has never been shaken. I gave her my faith on an imperious intuition, I proved
her true day after day in closest intimacy living by her side; and I speak of
her with the reverence due from a pupil to a teacher who never failed her, with
the passionate gratitude which, in our School, is the natural meed of the one
who opens the gateway and points out the path. "Folly! fanaticism!" scoffs the
Englishman of the nineteenth century. Be it so. I have seen, and I can wait. I
have been told that I plunged headlong into Theosophy and let my enthusiasm
carry me away. I think the charge is true, in so far as the decision was swiftly
taken; but it had been long led up to, and realised the dreams of childhood on
the higher planes of intellectual womanhood. And let me here say that more than
all I hoped for in that first plunge has been realised, and a certainty of
knowledge has been gained on doctrines seen as true as that swift flash of
illumination. I know, by personal experiment, that the Soul exists, and
that my Soul, not my body, is myself; that it can leave the body at will; that
it can, disembodied, reach and learn from living human teachers, and bring back
and impress on the physical brain that which it has learned; that this process
of transferring consciousness from one range of being, as it were, to another,
is a very slow process, during which the body and brain are gradually correlated
with the subtler form which is essentially that of the Soul, and that my own
experience of it, still so imperfect, so fragmentary, when compared with the
experience of the highly trained, is like the first struggles of a child
learning to speak compared with the perfect oratory of the practised speaker;
that consciousness, so far from being dependent on the brain, is more active
when freed from the gross forms of matter than when encased within them; that
the great Sages spoken of by H.P. Blavatsky exist; that they wield powers and
possess knowledge before which our control of Nature and knowledge of her ways
is but as child's play. All this, and much more, have I learned, and I am but a
pupil of low grade, as it were in the infant class of the Occult School; so the
first plunge has been successful, and the intuition has been justified. This
same path of knowledge that I am treading is open to all others who will pay the
toll demanded at the gateway—and that toll is willingness to renounce everything
for the sake of spiritual truth, and willingness to give all the truth that is
won to the service of man, keeping back no shred for self.
397.
On June 23rd,
in a review of "The Secret Doctrine" in the National Reformer, the
following passages occur, and show how swiftly some of the main points of the
teaching had been grasped. (There is a blunder in the statement that of the
seven modifications of Matter Science knows only four, and till lately knew only
three; these four are sub-states only, sub-divisions of the lowest plane.)
398.
After saying
that the nineteenth-century Englishman would be but too likely to be repelled if
he only skimmed the book, I went on: "With telescope and with microscope, with
scalpel and with battery, Western Science interrogates nature, adding fact to
fact, storing experience after experience, but coming ever to gulfs unfathomable
by its plummets, to heights unscalable by its ladders. Wide and masterful in its
answers to the 'How?' the 'Why?' ever eludes it, and causes remain enwrapped in
gloom. Eastern Science uses as its scientific instrument the penetrating
faculties of the mind alone, and regarding the material plane as Maya—illusion—seeks
in the mental and spiritual planes of being the causes of the material effects.
There, too, is the only reality; there the true existence of which the visible
universe is but the shadow.
399.
"It is clear
that from such investigations some further mental equipment is necessary than
that normally afforded by the human body. And here comes the parting of the ways
between East and West. For the study of the material universe, our five senses,
aided by the instruments invented by Science, may suffice. For all we can hear
and see, taste and handle, these accustomed servitors, though often blundering,
are the best available guides to knowledge. But it lies in the nature of the
case that they are useless when the investigation is to be into modes of
existence which cannot impress themselves on our nerve-ends. For instance, what
we know as colour is the vibration frequency of etheric waves striking on the
retina of the eye, between certain definite limits—759 trillions of blows from
the maximum, 436 trillions from the minimum—these waves give rise in us to the
sensation which the brain translates into colour. (Why the 436 trillion blows at
one end of a nerve become 'Red' at the other end we do not know; we chronicle
the fact but cannot explain it.) But our capacity to respond to the vibration
cannot limit the vibrational capacity of the ether; to us the higher and
lower rates of vibration do not exist, but if our sense of vision were more
sensitive we should see where now we are blind. Following this line of thought
we realise that matter may exist in forms unknown to us, in modifications to
which our senses are unable to respond. Now steps in the Eastern Sage and says:
'That which you say may be, is; we have developed and cultivated
senses as much superior to yours as your eye is superior to that of the
jelly-fish; we have evolved mental and spiritual faculties which enable us to
investigate on the higher planes of being with as much certainty as you are
investigating on the physical plane; there is nothing supernatural in the
business, any more than your knowledge is supernatural, though much above that
accessible to the fish; we do not speculate on these higher forms of existence;
we know
them by personal study, just as you know the fauna and flora of your world. The
powers we possess are not supernatural, they are latent in every human being,
and will be evolved as the race progresses. All that we have done is to evolve
them more rapidly than our neighbours, by a procedure as open to you as it was
to us. Matter is everywhere, but it exists in seven modifications of which you
only know four, and until lately only knew three; in those higher forms reside
the causes of which you see the effects in the lower, and to know these causes
you must develop the capacity to take cognisance of the higher planes.'"
400.
Then followed
a brief outline of the cycle of evolution, and I went on: "What part does man
play in this vast drama of a universe? Needless to say, he is not the only
living form in a Cosmos, which for the most part is uninhabitable by him. As
Science has shown living forms everywhere on the material plane, races in each
drop of water, life throbbing in every leaf and blade, so the 'Secret Doctrine'
points to living forms on higher planes of existence, each suited to its
environment, till all space thrills with life, and nowhere is there death, but
only change. Amid these myriads are some evolving towards humanity, some
evolving away from humanity as we know it, divesting themselves of its grosser
parts. For man is regarded as a sevenfold being, four of these parts belonging
to the animal body, and perishing at, or soon after, death; while three form his
higher self, his true individuality, and these persist and are immortal. These
form the Ego, and it is this which passes through many incarnations, learning
life's lesson as it goes, working out its own redemption within the limits of an
inexorable law, sowing seeds of which it ever reaps the harvest, building its
own fate with tireless fingers, and finding nowhere in the measureless time and
space around it any that can lift for it one weight it has created, one burden
it has gathered, unravel for it one tangle it has twisted, close for it one gulf
it has digged."
401.
Then after
noting the approaches of Western Science to Eastern, came the final words: "it
is of curious interest to note how some of the latest theories seem to catch
glimpses of the occult Doctrines, as though Science were standing on the very
threshold of knowledge which shall make all her past seem small. Already her
hand is trembling towards the grasp of forces beside which all those now at her
command are insignificant. How soon will her grip fasten on them? Let us hope
not until social order has been transformed, lest they should only give more to
those who have, and leave the wretched still wretcheder by force of contrast.
Knowledge used by selfishness widens the gulf that divides man from man and race
from race, and we may well shrink from the idea of new powers in Nature being
yoked to the car of Greed. Hence the wisdom of those 'Masters,' in whose name
Madame Blavatsky speaks, has ever denied the knowledge which is power until
Love's lesson has been learned, and has given only into the hands of the
selfless the control of those natural forces which, misused, would wreck
society."
402.
This review,
and the public announcement, demanded by honesty, that I had joined the
Theosophical Society, naturally raised somewhat of a storm of criticism, and the
National Reformer of June 30th contained the following: "The review of
Madame Blavatsky's book in the last National Reformer, and an
announcement in the Star, have brought me several letters on the subject
of Theosophy. I am asked for an explanation as to what Theosophy is, and as to
my own opinion on Theosophy—the word 'theosoph' is old, and was used among the
Neo-platonists. From the dictionary its new meaning appears to be, 'one who
claims to have a knowledge of God, or of the laws of nature by means of internal
illumination.' An Atheist certainly cannot be a Theosophist. A Deist might be a
Theosophist. A Monist cannot be a Theosophist. Theosophy must at least involve
Dualism. Modern Theosophy, according to Madame Blavatsky, as set out in last
week's issue, asserts much that I do not believe, and alleges some things that,
to me, are certainly not true. I have not had the opportunity of reading Madame
Blavatsky's two volumes, but I have read during the past ten years many
publications from the pen of herself, Colonel Olcott, and of other Theosophists.
They appear to me to have sought to rehabilitate a kind of Spiritualism in
Eastern phraseology. I think many of their allegations utterly erroneous, and
their reasonings wholly unsound. I very deeply regret indeed that my colleague
and co-worker has, with somewhat of suddenness, and without any interchange of
ideas with myself, adopted as facts matters which seem to me to be as unreal as
it is possible for any fiction to be. My regret is greater as I know Mrs.
Besant's devotion to any course she believes to be true. I know that she will
always be earnest in the advocacy of any views she undertakes to defend, and I
look to possible developments of her Theosophic views with the very gravest
misgiving. The editorial policy of this paper is unchanged, and is directly
antagonistic to all forms of Theosophy. I would have preferred on this subject
to have held my peace, for the public disagreeing with Mrs. Besant on her
adoption of Socialism has caused pain to both; but on reading her article and
taking the public announcement made of her having joined the Theosophical
organisation, I owe it to those who look to me for guidance to say this with
clearness. "CHARLES BRADLAUGH."
(1)
"It is not
possible for me here to state fully my reasons for joining the Theosophical
Society, the three objects of which are: To found a Universal Brotherhood
without distinction of race or creed; to forward the study of Aryan literature
and philosophy; to investigate unexplained laws of nature and the physical
powers latent in man. On matters of religious opinion the members are absolutely
free. The founders of the society deny a personal God, and a somewhat subtle
form of Pantheism is taught as the Theosophic view of the universe, though even
this is not forced on members of the society. I have no desire to hide the fact
that this form of Pantheism appears to me to promise solution of some problems,
especially problems in psychology, which Atheism leaves untouched.
"ANNIE BESANT."
403.
Theosophy, as
its students well know, so far from involving Dualism, is based on the One,
which becomes Two on manifestation, just as Atheism posits one existence, only
cognisable in the duality force and matter, and as philosophic—though not
popular—Theism teaches one Deity whereof are spirit and matter. Mr. Bradlaugh's
temperate disapproval was not copied in its temperance by some other Freethought
leaders, and Mr. Foote especially distinguished himself by the bitterness of his
attacks. In the midst of the whirl I was called away to Paris to attend, with
Herbert Burrows, the great Labour Congress held there from July 15th to July
20th, and spent a day or two at Fontainebleau with H.P. Blavatsky, who had gone
abroad for a few weeks' rest. There I found her translating the wonderful
fragments from "The Book of the Golden Precepts," now so widely known under the
name of "The Voice of the Silence." She wrote it swiftly, without any material
copy before her, and in the evening made me read it aloud to see if the "English
was decent." Herbert Burrows was there, and Mrs. Candler, a staunch American
Theosophist, and we sat round H.P.B. while I read. The translation was in
perfect and beautiful English, flowing and musical; only a word or two could we
find to alter, and she looked at us like a startled child, wondering at our
praises—praises that any one with the literary sense would endorse if they read
that exquisite prose poem.
404.
A little
earlier in the same day I had asked her as to the agencies at work in producing
the taps so constantly heard at Spiritualistic Séances. "You don't use
spirits to produce taps," she said; "see here." She put her hand over my head,
not touching it, and I heard and felt slight taps on the bone of my skull, each
sending a little electric thrill down the spine. She then carefully explained
how such taps were producible at any point desired by the operator, and how
interplay of the currents to which they were due might be caused otherwise than
by conscious human volition. It was in this fashion that she would illustrate
her verbal teachings, proving by experiment the statements made as to the
existence of subtle forces controllable by the trained mind. The phenomena all
belonged to the scientific side of her teaching, and she never committed the
folly of claiming authority for her philosophic doctrines on the ground that she
was a wonder-worker. And constantly she would remind us that there was no such
thing as "miracle"; that all the phenomena she had produced were worked by
virtue of a knowledge of nature deeper than that of average people, and by the
force of a well-trained mind and will; some of them were what she would describe
as "psychological tricks," the creation of images by force of imagination, and
in pressing them on others as a "collective hallucination"; others, such as the
moving of solid articles, either by an astral hand projected to draw them
towards her, or by using an Elemental; others by reading in the Astral Light,
and so on. But the proof of the reality of her mission from those whom she spoke
of as Masters lay not in these comparatively trivial physical and mental
phenomena, but in the splendour of her heroic endurance, the depth of her
knowledge, the selflessness of her character, the lofty spirituality of her
teaching, the untiring passion of her devotion, the incessant ardour of her work
for the enlightening of men. It was these, and not her phenomena, that won for
her our faith and confidence—we who lived beside her, knowing her daily life—and
we gratefully accepted her teaching not because she claimed any authority, but
because it woke in us powers, the possibility of which in ourselves we had not
dreamed of, energies of the Soul that demonstrated their own existence.
405.
Returning to
London from Paris, it became necessary to make a very clear and definite
presentment of my change of views, and in the Reformer of August 4th I
find the following: "Many statements are being made just now about me and my
beliefs, some of which are absurdly, and some of which are maliciously, untrue.
I must ask my friends not to give credence to them. It would not be fair to my
friend Mr. Bradlaugh to ask him to open the columns of this Journal to an
exposition of Theosophy from my pen, and so bring about a long controversy on a
subject which would not interest the majority of the readers of the National
Reformer. This being so I cannot here answer the attacks made on me. I feel,
however, that the party with which I have worked for so long has a right to
demand of me some explanation of the step I have taken, and I am therefore
preparing a pamphlet dealing fully with the question. Further, I have arranged
with Mr. R.O. Smith to take as subject of the lectures to be delivered by me at
the Hall of Science on August 4th and 11th 'Why I became a Theosophist.'
Meanwhile I think that my years of service in the ranks of the Freethought party
give me the right to ask that I should not be condemned unheard, and I even
venture to suggest, in view of the praises bestowed on me by Freethinkers in the
past, that it is possible that there may be something to be said, from the
intellectual standpoint, in favour of Theosophy. The caricatures of it which
have appeared from some Freethinkers' pens represent it about as accurately as
the Christian Evidence caricatures of Atheism represent that dignified
philosophy of life; and, remembering how much they are themselves
misrepresented, I ask them to wait before they judge."
406.
The lectures
were delivered, and were condensed into a pamphlet bearing the same title, which
has had a very great circulation. It closed as follows:—
407.
"There
remains a great stumblingblock in the minds of many Freethinkers which is
certain to prejudice them against Theosophy, and which offers to opponents a
cheap subject for sarcasm—the assertion that there exist other living beings
than the men and animals found on our own globe. It may be well for people who
at once turn away when such an assertion is made to stop and ask themselves
whether they really and seriously believe that throughout this mighty universe,
in which our little planet is but as a tiny speck of sand in the Sahara, this
one planet only is inhabited by living things? Is all the universe dumb save for
our voices? eyeless save for our vision? dead save for our
life? Such a preposterous belief was well enough in the days when Christianity
regarded our world as the centre of the universe, the human race as the one for
which the Creator had deigned to die. But now that we are placed in our proper
position, one among countless myriads of worlds, what ground is there for the
preposterous conceit which arrogates as ours all sentient existence? Earth, air,
water, all are teeming with living things suited to their environment; our globe
is overflowing with life. But the moment we pass in thought beyond our
atmosphere everything is to be changed. Neither reason nor analogy support such
a supposition. It was one of Bruno's crimes that he dared to teach that other
worlds than ours were inhabited; but he was wiser than the monks who burned him.
All the Theosophists aver is that each phase of matter has living things suited
to it, and that all the universe is pulsing with life. 'Superstition!' shriek
the bigoted. It is no more superstition than the belief in Bacteria, or in any
other living thing invisible to the ordinary human eye. 'Spirit' is a misleading
word, for, historically, it connotes immateriality and a supernatural kind of
existence, and the Theosophist believes neither in the one nor the other. With
him all living things act in and through a material basis, and 'matter' and
'spirit' are not found dissociated. But he alleges that matter exists in states
other than those at present known to science. To deny this is to be about as
sensible as was the Hindû prince who denied the existence of ice because water,
in his experience, never became solid. Refusal to believe until proof is given
is a rational position; denial of all outside of our own limited experience is
absurd.
408.
"One last
word to my Secularist friends. If you say to me, 'Leave our ranks,' I will leave
them; I force myself on no party, and the moment I feel myself unwelcome I will
go.[29] It has cost me pain enough and to spare
to admit that the Materialism from which I hoped all has failed me, and by such
admission to bring on myself the disapproval of some of my nearest friends. But
here, as at other times in my life, I dare not purchase peace with a lie. An
imperious necessity forces me to speak the truth, as I see it, whether the
speech please or displease, whether it bring praise or blame. That one loyalty
to Truth I must keep stainless, whatever friendships fail me or human ties be
broken. She may lead me into the wilderness, yet I must follow her; she may
strip me of all love, yet I must pursue her; though she slay me, yet will I
trust in her; and I ask no other epitaph on my tomb but
409.
"'SHE TRIED
TO FOLLOW TRUTH.'"
410.
Meanwhile,
with this new controversy on my hands, the School Board work went on, rendered
possible, I ought to say, by the generous assistance of friends unknown to me,
who sent me, £150 a year during the last year and a half. So also went on the
vigorous Socialist work, and the continual championship of struggling labour
movements, prominent here being the organisation of the South London fur-pullers
into a union, and the aiding of the movement for shortening the hours of tram
and 'bus men, the meetings for which had to be held after midnight. The feeding
and clothing of children also occupied much time and attention, for the little
ones in my district were, thousands of them, desperately poor. My studies I
pursued as best I could, reading in railway carriages, tramcars, omnibuses, and
stealing hours for listening to H.P.B. by shortening the nights.
411.
In October,
Mr. Bradlaugh's shaken strength received its death-blow, though he was to live
yet another fifteen months. He collapsed suddenly under a most severe attack of
congestion and lay in imminent peril, devotedly nursed by his only remaining
child, Mrs. Bonner, his elder daughter having died the preceding autumn. Slowly
he struggled back to life, after four weeks in bed, and, ordered by his
physician to take rest and if possible a sea voyage, he sailed for India on
November 28th, to attend the National Congress, where he was enthusiastically
acclaimed as "Member for India."
412.
In November I
argued a libel suit, brought by me against the Rev. Mr. Hoskyns, vicar of
Stepney, who had selected some vile passages from a book which was not mine and
had circulated them as representing my views, during the School Board election
of 1888. I had against me the Solicitor-General, Sir Edward Clarke, at the bar,
and Baron Huddleston on the bench; both counsel and judge did their best to
browbeat me and to use the coarsest language, endeavouring to prove that by
advocating the limitation of the family I had condemned chastity as a crime.
Five hours of brutal cross-examination left my denial of such teachings
unshaken, and even the pleadings of the judge for the clergyman, defending his
parishioners against an unbeliever and his laying down as law that the statement
was privileged, did not avail to win a verdict. The jury disagreed, not, as one
of them told me afterwards, on the question of the libel, but on some feeling
that a clergyman ought not to be mulcted in damages for his over-zeal in defence
of his faith against the ravening wolf of unbelief, while others, regarding the
libel as a very cruel one, would not agree to a verdict that did not carry
substantial damages. I did not carry the case to a new trial, feeling that it
was not worth while to waste time over it further, my innocence of the charge
itself having been fully proved.
413.
Busily the
months rolled on, and early in the year 1890 H.P.Blavatsky had given to her
£1,000, to use in her discretion for human service, and if she thought well, in
the service of women. After a good deal of discussion she fixed on the
establishment of a club in East London for working girls, and with her approval
Miss Laura Cooper and I hunted for a suitable place. Finally we fixed on a very
large and old house, 193, Bow Road, and some months went in its complete
renovation and the building of a hall attached to it. On August 15th it was
opened by Madame Blavatsky, and dedicated by her to the brightening of the lot
of hardworking and underpaid girls. It has nobly fulfilled its mission for the
last three years. Very tender was H.P.B.'s heart to human suffering, especially
to that of women and children. She was very poor towards the end of her earthly
life, having spent all on her mission, and refusing to take time from her
Theosophical work to write for the Russian papers which were ready to pay highly
for her pen. But her slender purse was swiftly emptied when any human pain that
money could relieve came in her way. One day I wrote a letter to a comrade that
was shown to her, about some little children to whom I had carried a quantity of
country flowers, and I had spoken of their faces pinched with want. The
following characteristic note came to me:—
414.
"MY DEAREST
FRIEND,—I have just read your letter to — and my heart is sick for the poor
little ones! Look here; I have but 30s. of my own money
of which I can dispose (for as you know I am a pauper, and proud of it), but I
want you to take them and not say a word. This may buy thirty dinners for
thirty poor little starving wretches, and I may feel happier for thirty minutes
at the thought. Now don't say a word, and do it; take them to those unfortunate
babies who loved your flowers and felt happy. Forgive your old uncouth friend,
useless in this world!
415.
"Ever yours,
416.
"H.P.B."
417.
It was this
tenderness of hers that led us, after she had gone, to found the "H.P.B. Home
for little children," and one day we hope to fulfil her expressed desire that a
large but homelike Refuge for outcast children should be opened under the
auspices of the Theosophical Society.
418.
The lease of
17, Lansdowne Road expiring in the early summer of 1890, it was decided that 19,
Avenue Road should be turned into the headquarters of the Theosophical Society
in Europe. A hall was built for the meetings of the Blavatsky Lodge—the lodge
founded by her—and various alterations made. In July her staff of workers was
united under one roof; thither came Archibald and Bertram Keightley, who had
devoted themselves to her service years before, and the Countess Wachtmeister,
who had thrown aside all the luxuries of wealth and of high social rank to give
all to the cause she served and the friend she loved with deep and faithful
loyajty; and George Mead, her secretary and earnest disciple, a man of strong
brain and strong character, a fine scholar and untiring worker; thither, too,
Claude Wright, most lovable of Irishmen, with keen insight underlying a bright
and sunny nature, careless on the surface, and Walter Old, dreamy and sensitive,
a born psychic, and, like many such, easily swayed by those around him; Emily
Kislingbury also, a studious and earnest woman; Isabel Cooper Oakley,
intuitional and studious, a rare combination, and a most devoted pupil in Occult
studies; James Pryse, an American, than whom none is more devoted, bringing
practical knowledge to the help of the work, and making possible the large
development of our printing department. These, with myself, were at first the
resident staff, Miss Cooper and Herbert Burrows, who were also identified with
the work, being prevented by other obligations from living always as part of the
household.
419.
The rules of
the house were—and are—very simple, but H.P.B. insisted on great regularity of
life; we breakfasted at 8 a.m., worked till lunch at 1, then again till dinner
at 7. After dinner the outer work for the Society was put aside, and we gathered
in H.P.B.'s room where we would sit talking over plans, receiving instructions,
listening to her explanation of knotty points. By 12 midnight all the lights had
to be extinguished. My public work took me away for many hours, unfortunately
for myself, but such was the regular run of our busy lives. She herself wrote
incessantly; always suffering, but of indomitable will, she drove her body
through its tasks, merciless to its weaknesses and its pains. Her pupils she
treated very variously, adapting herself with nicest accuracy to their differing
natures; as a teacher she was marvellously patient, explaining a thing over and
over again in different fashions, until sometimes after prolonged failure she
would throw herself back in her chair: "My God!" (the easy "Mon Dieu" of the
foreigner) "am I a fool that you can't understand? Here, So-and-so"—to some one
on whose countenance a faint gleam of comprehension was discernible—"tell these
flapdoodles of the ages what I mean." With vanity, conceit, pretence of
knowledge, she was merciless, if the pupil were a promising one; keen shafts of
irony would pierce the sham. With some she would get very angry, lashing them
out of their lethargy with fiery scorn; and in truth she made herself a mere
instrument for the training of her pupils, careless what they, or any one else
thought of her, providing that the resulting benefit to them was secured. And
we, who lived around her, who in closest intimacy watched her day after day, we
bear witness to the unselfish beauty of her life, the nobility of her character,
and we lay at her feet our most reverent gratitude for knowledge gained, lives
purified, strength developed. O noble and heroic Soul, whom the outside purblind
world misjudges, but whom your pupils partly saw, never through lives and deaths
shall we repay the debt of gratitude we owe to you.
420.
And thus I
came through storm to peace, not to the peace of an untroubled sea of outer
life, which no strong soul can crave, but to an inner peace that outer troubles
may not avail to ruffle—a peace which belongs to the eternal not to the
transitory, to the depths not to the shallows of life. It carried me scatheless
through the terrible spring of 1891, when death struck down Charles Bradlaugh in
the plenitude of his usefulness, and unlocked the gateway into rest for H. P.
Blavatsky. Through anxieties and responsibilities heavy and numerous it has
borne me; every strain makes it stronger; every trial makes it serener; every
assault leaves it more radiant. Quiet confidence has taken the place of doubt; a
strong security the place of anxious dread. In life, through death, to life, I
am but the servant of the great Brotherhood, and those on whose heads but for a
moment the touch of the Master has rested in blessing can never again look upon
the world save through eyes made luminous with the radiance of the Eternal
Peace.
PEACE TO ALL BEINGS.
FOOTNOTES
1
This odious law has now been altered, and a married woman is a person, not a
chattel.
2 "The
Disciples," p. 14.
3 "On
the Nature and Existence of God." 1874.
4 "On
the Nature and Existence of God." 1874.
5 "The
Gospel of Atheism." 1876.
6 "Why
I do not Believe in God." 1887.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 "Life,
Death, and Immortality." 1886.
10 "Life,
Death, and Immortality." 1886.
11 "Life,
Death, and Immortality." 1886.
12 Ibid.
13 "The
Gospel of Atheism." 1876.
14 "On
the Nature and Existence of God." 1874.
15 "The
True Basis of Morality." 1874.
16 "Gospel
of Atheism." 1876.
17 "On
the Nature and Existence of God." 1874.
18 "A
World without God." 1885.
19 "The
Gospel of Atheism." 1876.
20 "The
Gospels of Christianity and Freethought." 1874.
21 "A
World without God." 1885.
22 "A
World without God." 1885.
23 "The
Gospel of Atheism." 1876.
24 "A
World without God." 1885.
25 "A
World without God." 1885.
26 "The
Christian Creed." 1884.
27 National
Reformer, June 18, 1882
28 Theosophist,
June, 1882.
29 I
leave these words as they were written in 1889. I resigned my office in the
N.S.S. in 1890, feeling that the N.S.S. was so identified with Materialism that
it had no longer place for me.
LIST OF BOOKS QUOTED.
"Autobiography," J.S. Mill, 184
"Christian Creed, The," 173
"Freethinkers' Text-book," 144
"Gospel of Atheism, The," 145, 152, 158,
168
"Gospels of Christianity and Freethought,"
164
"Life, Death, and Immortality," 147, 149,
150
Link, The, 333
National Reformer, The, 79, 80, 280, 346-50, 354
Our Corner, 286, 329
Theosophist, The, 282, 288
"True Basis of Morality," 156
"Why I do Not Believe in God," 146
"World without God," 165, 169, 172
INDEX.
·
Affirmation
Bill brought in, 287
·
rejected,
299
·
Atheist,
position as an, 139
·
Authorship,
first attempts at, 84.
·
Bennett,
D.M., prosecution of, 232
·
Blasphemy
prosecution, 283, 287, 289
·
Blavatsky,
H.P., 189, 337
·
meeting
with, 341
·
"Bloody
Sunday," 324
·
Bradlaugh,
Charles, first meeting with, 135
·
as
friend, 137
·
in the
Clock Tower, 258
·
and the
scene in the House, 265
·
v.
Newdegate; result, 289
·
prosecuted for blasphemy, 283, 289
·
Confirmation,
51
·
Daughter,
application to remove, 213
·
denied
access to, 219
·
Death of
father, 21
·
of
mother, 126
·
Doubt the
first, 58
·
"Elements of
Social Science," 196
·
Engagement,
69
·
Essay, first
Freethought, 113
·
Fenians, the,
73
·
Freethinker prosecution, 283, 287, 296
·
Freethought
Publishing Company, the, 285
·
Harrow, life
at, 30
·
Hoskyns, Rev.
E., libel action against, 359
·
Knowlton
pamphlet, the, 205
·
prosecution, 208
·
trial,
210
·
"Law of
Population, The," 212, 210
·
"Law and
Liberty League," the, 326
·
Lecture, the
first, 181
·
Linnell, the
Trafalgar Square victim, 316
·
funeral
of, 327
·
Link, founding of the, 331
·
Malthusian
League formed, 229
·
Malthusianism
and Theosophy, 240
·
Marriage, 70
·
tie
broken, no
·
Match-girls'
strike, 335
·
Union,
established, 336
·
National
Reformer, the, 134
·
first
contribution to, 180
·
resignation of co-editorship, 320
·
National
Secular Society joined, 135
·
elected
vice-president of, 202
·
resignation of, 357
·
Northampton
Election, 183
·
struggle,
253, 344
·
Oaths Bill,
the, 314, 329
·
Our Corner,
286, 314
·
Political
Opinions, 174
·
Pusey, Dr.,
109, 284
·
Russian
politics, 311
·
Scientific
work, 249
·
School Board,
election to, 338
·
Scott,
Thomas, 112, 127
·
Socialism,
299
·
debate
on, between Messrs. Bradlaugh and Hyndman, 301
·
Socialist
debates, 318, 319
·
Socialists
and open-air speaking, 312
·
Defence
Association, 323
·
Stanley,
Dean, 23, 122
·
Theosophical
Society, the, 180
·
joined,
344
·
headquarters established, 361
·
Theosophy and
Charles Bradlaugh, 350
·
the
National Secular Society, 357
·
Trafalgar
Square, closing of, to the public, 323
·
Truelove,
Edward, trial of, 225
·
Voysey, Rev.
Charles, 106
·
Working
Women's Club, 337, 360
---------------------