SELECTIONS FROM SOME OF THE WRITINGS OF MR. KINGSLEY.* Mn.
HARRISON (the editor of these extracts) has loved Canon Kingsley "not wisely, but too well," in making him, as it were, assume a position of authority on all subjects during his life to which very few indeed are raised even after death by the common voice of impartial posterity. An author, when he publishes his thoughts and opinions, takes his chance, and stands or falls by their merits, assuming nothing as to their value. But a book of extracts, if it means anything, means that these thoughts and opinions should be brought within the reach of everyone, that they are of such value that they should be made very easily accessible,— stripped of every unnecessary and superfluous appendage, and ticketed and catalogued for immediate refer- ence. Now, we submit that Mr. Kingsley, much as he is justly admired as a writer, and respected as a thinker, scarcely feels himself in this exalted position, or even regards all the productions from which these extracts are selected as the expression of his deliberate and final judgments. Take, for instance, this opinion as to men of science, probably written on a more or less hasty summons, for a social gathering, and very naturally—and in common, we fear, with the majority of such papers—with a predisposition to say something agreeable at such a time, to sweeten, perhaps, more valuable, but leas welcome truths :—
"Tim ARISTOCRACY OF um Furcas.—I say it deliberately, as a student of society and of history :—Power will pass more and more, if all goes healthily and well, into the hands of scientific men—into the hands of those who have made due use of that great heirloom which the philosophers of the seventeenth century left for the use of future generations, and specially of the Teutonic race. For the rest, events seem but too likely to repeat themselves again and again all over the world in the same hopeless circle. Aristocracies of mere birth decay and die, and give place to aristocracies of mere wealth ; and they again to aristocracies of genius, which are really aristocracies of the noisiest, of mere scribblers and spouters, such as France is writhing under at this moment. And when these last have blown off their steam, with mighty roar, but without moving the engine a single yard, then they are but too likely to give place to the worst of all aristocracies, the aristocracy of mere 'order,' which means organised brute force and military despotism. And, after that, what can come, but anarchy, and decay, and social death? What else ?—unless there be left in the nation, in the society,—as the salt of the land, to keep it all from rotting, —a sufficient number of wise men to form a true working aristocracy, an aristocracy of sound and rational science. If they be strong enough and they are growing stronger day by day over the civilised world— on them will the future of that world mainly depend. They will rule, and they will act —cautiously, we may hope, and modestly, and charitably —because in learning true knowledge they will have learnt also their own ignorance, and the vastness, the complexity, the mystery of nature. But they will be able to rule, they will be able to act, because they have taken the trouble to learn the facts and the laws of nature. They will rule, and their rule, if they are true to themselves, will be one of health and wealth and peace, of prudence and of justice. For they alone will be able to wield for the benefit of man the brute forces of nature, because they alone will have stooped to conquer nature by obeying her.—Lecture given at the Railway Works, Crewe."
We heartily hope they will not. We do not find in men of science the uniform modesty and charity which Mr. Kingsley concludes are not only the results of the knowledge that teaches how little we know, but also the attributes of its possessors. We
hope rather to see men of science placing their knowledge and their skill and power at the service of the men of thought,—of the students of social law and of a wider and religious philosophy.
But it is not our purpose to contest the opinions set forth in these papers—of which papers there are one hundred and sixty-six—first, because our business here is with the book as a collection of extracts, and not with the subject of the extracts ; secondly, be- cause these are clearly far too numerous to discuss in our very narrow limits, and also—and this is one of our most serious objections to collections of this kind—because, however carefully edited, the con-
text is often absolutely essential to a correctjudgment of the passage, appreciation of its force or beauty. Take this instance. Of course one can form a general idea of its meaning, but one does not wish to read such passages with the expression at one's tongue's end, "I suppose I know what he is driving at." To enjoy it, as choice Selections from Some of the Writings of the Rev. C. Kingsley, ALA. London : Straban and Co.
extracts are meant to be enjoyed, the meaning should be quite clear, and the idea embodied complete and perfect :—
" SIR WALTER RALEIGH.— . . These years are Raleigh's noon— stormy enough at best, yet brilliant. There is a pomp about kim, outward and inward, which is terrible to others, dangerous to himself. One has gorgeous glimpses of that grand Durham House of his, with its carvings and its antique marbles, armorial escutcheons, beds with green silk hangings, and legs like dolphins, overlaid with gold ;' and tho man himself, tall, beautiful, and graceful, perfect alike in body and in mind, walking to and fro, his beautiful wife upon his arm, his noble boy beside his knee, in his white satin doublet, embroidered with pearls, and a great chain of pearls about his neck,' lording it among the lords with 'an awfulness and ascendancy above other mortals,' for which men say that, 'his nave is, that he is damnable proud ;' and no wonder. The reduced squire's younger son has gone forth to conquer the world ; and he fancies, poor fool, that he has conquered it, just as it really has conquered him : and ho will stand now on his blood and his pedigree—no bad one either—and all the more stiffly because puppies like Lord Oxford, who instead of making their fortunes have squandered them, call him 'jack and upstart,' and make impertinent remarks while the Queen is playing the virginals, about 'how when jacks go up, heads go down.' Proud ? No wonder if the man be proud ! 'Is not this great Babylon, which I have built?' And yet all the while he has the most affecting consciousness that all this is not God's will, but the will of the flesh ; that the house of fame is not the house of God ; that its floor is not the rock of ages, but the sea of glass mingled with fire, which may crack beneath him any moment, and let the nether flame burst up. He knows that he is living, in a splendid lie ; that he is not what God meant him to be. He longs to floe away and be at peace. It is to this period, not to his death-hour, that 'The Lie' belongs; saddest of poems, with its melodious contempt and life- weariness."
It is not necessary, in order to illustrate our meaning, that we should complete thepassage. It is in this first part of it that we do not find ourselves sufficiently posted up in the immediate cir- cumstances of Sir Walter's life, and in the causes of his assumed state of mind, to enter fully into Mr. Kingsley's sentiments.
We have been taught lately that it is injurious to the brain to pass frequently and rapidly from one thought to another—that "every thought decomposes some nervous matter "—and we fancy it must be an instinctive apprehension of this which makes a volume of short poems or of prose extracts so irksome to contemplate, and so wearisome to read ; fortunately, it is only the unhappy critic for whom it is an imperative duty to plod steadily on from one short paragraph to another, till all sense of beauty and meaning is lost in an absorbing consciousness of 'break,' attended with that sense of irritable despair with which an anxious and weary traveller finds himself stopping at every little road station, and shunted backwards and forwards to pick up goods for a slow train on no main line. We remember in a bookcase, which faced the present writer's childhood, two volumes, entitled Elegant Extracts,—Prose, and Elegant Extracts,—Verse, and we cannot remember any other books in that goodly-sized bookcase that sat so like nightmares on our childish leisure, unless it were Zimmerman on Solitude and Zollikoffer's Devotions. That the Elegant Extracts were handsomely bound seemed to add insult to injury,—as one feels that a disagree- able woman is infinitely more disagreeable when she is stiff in expensfve satin.
Mr. Harrison begins badly. To tell the truth, Canon Kingsley, with all his great powers of exquisite description, and forcible ex- pression, and clear sense, is a high-handed gentleman ; and we require, if we are to worshiyhim with Mr. Harrison, to be led up to him gently, and to find Lim, at first, at any rate, affable and conciliatory. Now, Mr. Harrison presents him to us in a precisely opposite aspect. He takes, so to speak, the bull by the horns, which is an excellent plan when we are in difficulties, but not exactly the way in which we should treat a gentle reader, whose attitude of mind we do not desire to resemble that of the enraged bull. Mr. Harrison presents Canon Kingsley to us in the very first sentence in a belligerent attitude, metaphorically speaking, with his back to the wall and his sleeves rolled up. "I will never believe," is his dictum, in the very first line of this book, as to an article of modern faith. We think it was a mistake to begin with theology, both because of the certain difference there would inevitably be between Canon Kingsley's views and those of readers who might enjoy his general writings but not belong to his theological party, and because of the dic- tatorial element in the Canon's constitution, which is apparent even in his gentlest and most unargumentative writings. It is
well to begin with the solids, and reserve the sweets for a bonne- bouche when it is a duty to partake of the solids, but it is not wise to rouse opposition when there is no duty as to the solids, and when you are anxious that the sweets should be appreciated.
The extracts themselves, apart from the wisdom of publishing them and the policy of their arrangement, seem well chosen, and are, on the whole, very interesting, some exceedingly powerful, others very beautiful, and all thoughtful. The " practical " ones are very valuable and suggestive. The critical and theo- logical ones are, of course, those that rouse most antagonism, and in which the somewhat intolerant and domineering attitude of Mr. Kingsley's mind—so often allied with unusual earnestness and honesty of purpose—is most marked. The his- torical and descriptive passages are to us the most delightful, though we are inclined to smile at the enthusiasm and imagina- tion of Canon Kingsley's poet-nature, which, unless our memory is very treacherous, undeniably colour the descriptions of the lovely and romantic scenery of Devonshire. Here is one of "the Hobby," near Clovelly, with which we must conclude :—
" CLOVELLY.= I have seen nothing in England to be compared with this little strip of semi-tropic paradise between two great waste worlds of sea and moor. Lynmouth might be matched among the mountains of Wales and Ireland. The first three miles of the Rheidol, from the Devil's Bridge towards Aberystwith, or the gorge of the Wye, down the opposite watershed of the same mountains, from Castle Dufferin down to Rhaiadyr, are equal to it in magnificence of form and colour, and superior in size. But I question whether anything over charmed me more than did the return to the sounds of nature which greeted me to- day, as I turned back from the dreary, silent moorland turnpike into this magnificent new road, terraced along the cliffs and woods—thoso who first thought of cutting it must have had souls in them above the herd—and listened to a glorious concert in four parts, blending and supporting each other in the most exquisite harmony, from the shrill treble of a thousand birds, and the soft melancholy alto of the moaning woods, downward through the rich tenor hum of innumerable insects, that hung like sparks of fire beneath the glades of oak, to the bass of the unseen surge below, • Whose deep and dreadful organ-pipe,' far below me, contrasted strangely with the rich soft inland character of the deep woods, luxuriant ferns, and gaudy flowers. It is that very contrast which makes the place so unique. One is accustomed to con- nect with the notion of the sea bare cliffs, breezy downs, stunted shrubs struggling for existence; and instead of them behold a forest wall, five hundred feet high, of almost semi-tropic luxuriance. At one turn, a deep glen, with its sea of green woods, filled up at the mouth with the bright azure sheet of ocean. Then some long stretch of the road would be banked on one side with crumbling rocks, festooned with heath, and golden hawkweed, and London-pride, like velvet cushions covered with pink lace, and beds of white bramble blossom alive with butterflies; while above my head, and on my right, the delicate cool canopy of oak and birch leaves shrouded me so close, that I could have fancied myself miles inland, buried in some glen unknown to any wind of heaven, but that everywhere between green sprays and grey stems, gleamed that same boundless ocean blue, seeming, from the height at which I was, to mount into the very sky. It looked but a step out of the leavy covert into blank infinity. And then, as the road wound round some point, one's eye could fall down, down, through tho abyss of perpendicular wood, tree below tree clinging to and clothing the cliff, or rather no. cliff, but perpendicular sheet of deep wood sedge, and enormous crown ferns, spreading their circular fans :—but there is no describing them, or painting them either. And then to see how the midday sunbeams leapt past one down the abyss, throwing out here a grey stem by one- point of burnished silver, there a hazel branch by a single leaf of glow- ing golden green, shooting long bright arrows down, down, through the dim, hot, hazy atmosphere of the wood, till it rested at last upon the dappled beach of pink and grey pebbles, and the dappled surge which wandered up and down among them, and broke up into richer- intricacy with its chequer-work of woodland shadows, the restless net of snowy foam."—Misc., vol. ii.: North Devon.
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