Martin Farquhar Tupper - My Life as an Author

M >> Martin Farquhar Tupper >> My Life as an Author

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And here may come a brief memory I wrote lately of Colonel Fred. Burnaby
for an American editor.

"I am asked to give a short note of personal reminiscence about my
lately departed friend, Colonel _Fred. Burnaby_, with whom I was
intimate for three years before his death. Every one has read his
popular life, and heard of his many exploits; how alone in mid-air he
navigated a balloon across the Channel; how he accomplished, in spite of
State telegrams to the contrary, his adventurous and patriotic ride to
Khiva in dead winter and defying perils of all sorts; how he stood six
feet four in his stockings (with another foot to be added to that
magnificent specimen of manhood when in jack-boots and in his plumed
helmet); how he was strong enough to bind a kitchen poker round his
neck, to crack cobnuts in his fingers, and to carry a pair of Shetland
ponies upstairs under his arms,--how also the genial giant, quite the
Arac of Tennyson's Princess, was the gentlest and kindest and least
dangerous of knights-errant (unless, indeed, his just wrath was aroused
by anything mean or insolent, when doubtless he could be terrible), and
how he was the idolised of men, especially his own brother giants of the
Royal Regiment of Blues, and naturally was also the adored of women
wherever he showed himself. This Admirable Crichton had every social
accomplishment, but as he was also gifted with a knowledge of many
tongues, even to Turkish and Arabic, beyond the more familiar French,
German, Italian, and Spanish, of course he must dare all sorts of
perilous travel, if only to prove that he was no carpet-knight, no mere
'gold stick' at court, or silver-casqued statue at the Horse Guards. So
he fearlessly risked his life in all ways on every possible occasion
which the War Office routine gave him on holiday.

"Khiva and Kars, and of late at last the fatal Mahdi war, had
fascinations for him of danger which his thirst for active service (too
much refused to him as obliged officially to be a stay-at-home) had not
power to resist; and we all know how gallantly, if indeed too rashly, he
fought and fell on what his Viking blood loved best as a deathbed, the
field of battle. For he came of an old Teutonic family, and on his
mother's side was also a direct descendant, as he told me himself, of
our heroic and gigantic King Edward III., whom he is said greatly to
have resembled, as the portrait at Windsor Castle proves. We were
talking about ancestry and the anecdote came out naturally enough.

"In politics a strong Conservative, he, with characteristic antagonism,
chose radical Birmingham for his coveted seat in Parliament, but alas!
he has not lived to hazard the election. He was a neat, fluent, and
epigrammatic speaker, as potent with his tongue as with his sword; and
as for the pen (albeit his handwriting must have puzzled compositors),
the myriads of readers who have enjoyed his stirring books in print, can
testify how brilliant and eloquent he was for the matter of authorship.
He told me of a new novel--of the satirico-political sort--which he had
written for the press, but as yet we hear nothing definite of its
publication.

"My own personal acquaintance with the familiar 'Fred. Burnaby' was
confined to several hospitable dinner-parties at the house of his
relative, Lady W----, my near neighbour and friend at Norwood, about
which I might anecdotise to any extent; but I never allow myself to
record private conversation nor to reveal domesticities. All such are
sacred in my memory, and on principle I despise the modern
mischief-maker whose reminiscences are practically reminuisances. On a
certain public occasion, however, Burnaby stood by me, to my great
pleasure and advantage, and let me record his kindness thus. When I gave
my lecture on Flying at the Royal Aquarium, he most appropriately took
the chair, and made some excellent remarks. Altogether, let my
testimony, however brief, however inadequate, to the merits of Fred.
Burnaby be this: I lost in his too sudden death a friend, as I had
hoped, for many years to come, and my regrets are for him as one of the
noblest of mankind. Let me add a word further, as the worthy witnessing
of one, quite a kindred spirit, whose acquaintance I made some long time
back, and look for great things from his energy and enterprise, and
multifarious talents,--_Charles Marvin_, then the famous Eastern
Pioneer, who in his book on Asia, says: "Yes, our Burnabys, our Bakers,
our MacGregors, our Gordons--these are the real pillars of the Empire.
These are the men who confer provinces upon England, who risk their
lives to guard them. When the world is a little older, and the working
man's vote is worth more than the statesman's opinion, then the splendid
achievements of such men will be more generously appreciated: and the
warm English feeling expended to-day on torpid, stupid, unpatriotic
party politicians will be directed towards heroes whose steady undaunted
patriotism, in face of public indifference and bureaucratic disdain,
conveys a moral as grand as their careers."

A Dining-out Anecdote.

As I have before said, not having been much given to society, nor
therefore a professional parasite of Amphitryon (though sometimes
tempted to his side as "a lion," but more often vainly, for I always
refused if I could), I have an instructive anecdote to give about a
celebrated conversationist, whom I will not name nor indicate even by
initials. One evening I found myself compelled to accompany him to a
great man's banquet--_nota bene_, it was after I had well recovered
speech--and so I found myself at his chambers perhaps ten minutes too
soon. He called to me from his dressing-room, bidding me to amuse myself
till he was ready. Now, on the study table were laid several books,
open, with weights to keep them so: and I glanced from one to another to
while away the time. Then up came his brougham, and off we went. At
dinner my "diner-out" started a topic, whereof innocently enough I
remembered instantly a suitable epigram. Not long after another subject
gave me occasion to tell a witty story, which somehow came to me at the
moment. My "friend" asked me with a keen glance where I had read it, and
at once I recollected those open books and understood the position,
resolving mischievously to outflank the manaeuverer. Accordingly, at each
opportunity, with seeming innocence, I "wiped his eye," as they say at a
_battue_, and certainly reaped the anecdotic "_kudos_" Mr. So-and-so had
cunningly contrived and hoped to achieve for himself. I confess it was
vicious of me, but who could help taking the benefit of such a chance?
Hosts should beware of wits who cram their jokes and anecdotes. Years
after I met the same gentleman at another entertainer's table, where I
found him in my presence not quite the livener-up they had expected, and
he seemed a little shy of me; probably he thought me an omniscient, for
I never told the poor man I had found him out. I fear he has departed
to a world where genuine truthfulness is more accepted as a virtue than
in this.

A Mormon Guest.

Quite recently I have had a visit from a young American, who brought me
a letter from a so-called cousin--at all events a namesake--in the Far
West, asking me to tell her about her German ancestry. My visitor was
good-looking, well-dressed, fair-spoken, and gentlemanly; also well-bred
and well-to-do. I will not indicate his name, but I may state that he is
a near relative of the eminent electrician who illuminates so
magnificently the fountains at South Kensington. Of course, as pleased
with his manners and deportment, I kept him to luncheon; and finding
that he hailed from Utah, naturally asked if he knew Salt Lake City and
the Mormons there. Certainly; he lived not a hundred miles from the
city, and those were his own people: as a Mormon himself from infancy,
he had nothing but good to say of them, and we in England had been very
much misled by Mrs. Stenhouse and other travellers. As to plurality of
wives, not two per cent. of their whole 200,000 had more than one wife.
His own father, a rich merchant and a church-hierarch, a "stake" of the
tabernacle (much as we should say a pillar), had but one--his own dear
mother--and he scarcely knew any one with more. It was quite a European
misjudgment that many followed Brigham Young's doctrine, which never had
been Joseph Smith's,--and the present chief, Taylor, had but one. He
showed us many cabinet photographs of Salt Lake City, his own family,
leading Mormons, and the like: especially of the Old Tabernacle, like a
monstrous tortoise, and one from a finished drawing of the new, of even
more tasteless architecture, being the most gigantic piece of
perpendicular ever perpetrated, and full of unsightly windows. When
asked about the golden book,--well he had never seen it, but believed in
it thoroughly; because all the twelve apostles had seen it and he
trusted their testimony. Eleven of those apostles were now dead, one
only surviving. (Just as with our friends of Mr. Irving's sect at
Albury, which arose in the same year as Mormonism.) We had never set
eyes on the originals of our own Scriptures--in fact, they did not
exist--but believed the witnessing of others, as he did. He himself was
not a missionary, but would go if he was sent by the Church; though he
mightn't like it, he was bound to, obey, authority, &c. &c.

I had plenty more talk with him, and found him intelligent, modest, and
in every way a remarkably agreeable young fellow: and I added to my
mental _repertoire_ of better judgments that on Mormonism,--even as
heretofore Mr. Sinnett has taught me not utterly to despise Buddhism,
Dr. Wilkinson to revere Swedenborgianism, and a few other people I might
name who are true believers, to be charitable as to other sorts of
strange isms: once I met a very religious clergyman who still held by
Johanna Southcote; and we have all heard how Lady Hester Stanhope had an
Arab horse always ready saddled for Messiah when He is to ride into
Jerusalem; and how some other person had a gold spoon and fork laid
daily at his table for the sudden coming of a Divine Guest! Our personal
lesson is to be tolerant of all manner of innocent enthusiasms, to hear
both sides and bear with all opinions,--sometimes finding to our
astonishment that black sheep may after all be whiter than they looked,
and that uncharitable prejudice is but another name for ignorant folly.
Before taking leave of my Mormon guest, I ought to report that he was
teetotal, handsome, taciturn rather than talkative, a hunter among the
Rockies, an author himself, and of course an old book-friend, so I made
him happy with some autographic poetries.

With reference to "Joe Smith's" own theological creed, there is a very
neat and notable _precis_ of it on p. 171 of a bright little book I have
lately read, titled "Frank's Ranche, or my Holiday in the Rockies,"
easily accessible. That creed is so good that when I read it aloud to my
homeflock they said, "Why, we believe all that!"--and as to the evil
matter of many wives, not only did the original Joseph repudiate that
doctrine, but his namesake son, still a chief among the Mormons, does
the same, and so far has seceded from the Brigham heresy: which a son of
mine says is not bigamy, but Brighamy.

A few forgotten anecdotes may here find place: take these twelve as
samples of many more such trivials which memory may have at the bottom
of her well, if she only dipped for them.

1. A banknote experience: when a very small child I used to be taken to
the Postford paper-mill at Albury by my nurse, who had a follower (or a
followed) in the foreman there. While they talked together, I was
deputed to amuse myself by making banknote paper, as thus: a spoonful of
pulp put into a shallow tray of wire and shaken deftly made a small
oblong of paper duly impressed with Britannia and water-marked: being
then dried on a flannel pad. Many years after, when I was preparing for
Oxford under Mr. Holt at Postford House, there was discovered a secret
cupboard in the wall of his drawing-room which was found to contain
several forged plates for printing banknotes: and this discovery
accounted for the recent suicide of a Mr. H----, a previous owner of the
paper-mill, who evidently feared exposure and conviction. No one now is
allowed to make banknote paper, except the honourable firm of Messrs.
Portal, which has the monopoly thereof: but when I was a child, any one
might do it, and if there was a forger handy, fraud was possible to any
extent. Our "Newland's Corner" on Merrow Downs is so called from Abraham
Newland, whose name is printed on old banknotes as F. May is on new
ones, and who owned Postford Mill. Hence the word "Sham-Abram" for a
forged note.

2. A noted piscatorial editor wishes me to record now I once caught a
trout with its own eye--as thus: I was whipping the Tillingbourne, and
hooked a fish foul, for it dropped off leaving an eye on the hook. In my
vexation I made a cast again over the same spot where I had thrown, and
actually caught that eager wounded fish with its own eye.

3. When I was a guest of Captain Hamilton at Rozelle, Ayr, he told me
that he and all the crew had seen the sea-serpent!--but that his admiral
had interdicted all mention of it in the log for fear of ridicule: on
which I told him what I had seen of the same sort. When crossing the
great Herring Pond in the _Arctic_, the passengers were all summoned on
deck from dinner to see that mystery of the deep, the sea-serpent. It
was very rough at the time, and certainly within a little distance some
apparent monster hundreds of feet long was rolling on the top of the
waves: _but_ as some portions of it spouted, we soon saw there nothing
but a school of whales, the big bull leading and the cows and calves
following in a line. This looked like the real thing,--but wasn't. From
other evidence, however, and the Rev. J.G. Wood supplies one, I do
believe there are such monsters of the deep whose nest is in the
Sargasso Sea.

4. Here is a curious item of my biography. When I was in Canada in 1851,
at an hotel in Kingston, the waiter comes to tell me that two persons
wanted to see me on special business. Admitted, there appeared a very
decent man and woman dressed in their best, and with ribbons and
flowers. What might they want with me? Please, Mr. Tupper, that you
would marry us! My good man, I can't, I'm not a clergyman. Oh but, sir,
you write religion, and we like your books, and we've come across from
New York State to Canada to get married,--so please, &c. &c. Of course,
I did not please, and as to marriage at all gave them Punch's celebrated
advice to persons about to marry, Don't. On which the hapless pair
departed sorrowfully. If I _had_ read the service over them, possibly
their respectable consciences might have been satisfied,--and as with
Romeo and Juliet a lay friar Lawrence would have sufficed. Moreover,
there's no penalty from one State to another: and even on board ship the
captain may read services, and on land the Consul marries.

5. A picture story. I am invited to a dinner where a rich New Yorker has
asked some connoisseur friends to inspect his new purchase, a Raffaelle
Madonna and child, for which he has just given a fabulous amount of
dollars. I was asked for special judgment as an artistic Englishman.
Well: the drawing was perfect; but I didn't like the colouring: I knew
the picture, having seen the original somewhere on the Continent: but
this couldn't be a copy, as it was less than life-size; so, while most
of the other guests praised profusely, I requested to withhold my
opinion of its merits till I could examine it in daylight,--which, as I
was to sleep in the house, was easy next morning. When my eager host
appeared, I took him alone after breakfast into his study, and proved to
him what, alas! I had too truly suspected, that however well painted
with the over-accuracy of a miniature and absolutely correct as was the
drawing,--his prize Raffaelle was after all only an oil-coloured
engraving! This he wouldn't believe, triumphantly showing me the ancient
canvas at the back: but when I told him that between that canvas and the
paint he would find paper, and when a penknife scratch under the
frame-edge proved it,--he naturally stormed at the dealer who had taken
him in, until I suggested a disgorging of the dollars, and promising my
own silence as to the discovery, left him a wiser man and a grateful.

6. How often the poor letter H has crushed oratory and destroyed
eloquence! Do I not remember how notably a late Lord Mayor raised the
echoes of the Egyptian Hall to an explosion of laughter, by commencing
grandiloquently, "When hi survey the dignity of my 'igh position," &c.
&c.; and similarly what a disastrous effect a certain preacher caused in
church by the announcement, "This is the hare, come let us kill him?"
But we all know the mysteries of H and W: AEsop Smith wrote a fable about
them, whereof this is the finale: "H," said King Cadmus, "one of my
oldest friends! never can I spare your respectable presence; your
ancestor is the throat-uttered Heth of Moses; even as you, dear W, are
descended from the stately digamma of Homer. Believe me, I value both of
you all the more for graceful ambiguities: mystery is priceless to your
king, and your usage is obscure: therefore do I lay upon you higher
honour. Henceforth, ye vowel magnates, and you my faithful commons
consonants, take heed that no one be accounted literate or eloquent who
places these my oldest friends in a dilemma. Their right use is a
mystery; so be it; but woe be unto those whose innate want of taste
profanes that mystery. Honour be to H, and worship be to W; and let
those who misuse their secret excellences dread the vengeance of King
Cadmus!"

7. Yet a seventh whimsical anecdote rises to the surface. When Prince
Albert was made a fellow of Lincoln's Inn, and dined in the New Hall, I
was present at the banquet. There was a roast joint and one bottle of
port to each mess of four barristers: one would think a supply more than
ample: however, some thirsty souls wanted more wine for the great
occasion, and the complaint found utterance ludicrously thus. When the
National Anthem was sung, some young lawyer who gave the solos, with a
good tenor voice and no end of dry humour, raised a gale of laughter and
applause by singing very devoutly--

"Long to reign over us
_Happy and glorious,_
_Three half-pints 'mong four of us,_
God save the Queen!"

Of course, plenty more bottles were the result,--and the genial Prince
Albert laughed as heartily as the rest of us.

8. Yet another anecdote, in these days of professional mendicancy not
uninstructive. One day when calling on the Rev. Robert Anderson, at
Brighton, a begging visitor came in, calling himself a Polish refugee,
and speaking broken English: Mr. Anderson in his kindness was just about
to open his purse, when I said to both of them, "I happen to know a
little Polish, and wish to ask a few questions:" accordingly, I rapped
out at intervals, with an interrogating air, the opening lines of the
Antigone of Sophocles! on which that "banished lord," stammering out
that he had been out of Poland so many years that he had forgotten the
language, bowed himself from the room as a--discovered, impostor.

9. The recent lamentable fire at Kegan Paul's, wherein so much authorial
wealth was cremated,--and especially no fewer than six of the works of
that clever authoress, Emily Pfeiffer,--reminds me of an irrevocable
loss sustained by "Proverbial Philosophy" owing to Oudinot's capture of
Rome in 1849: for it so happened that the Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna
had, as instructress to his nieces, a lady who afterwards became Mrs.
Robinson of South Kensington Museum: she, a great admirer of the work,
translated my book for them into Italian, and had it printed at Rome,
where unluckily both the whole MS. and the finished sheets were all
burnt in the city's bombardment. I have since asked Mrs. Robinson if she
could possibly reproduce it: but--the occasion passed, there is now
neither time nor need for it, and so my Italian version has no
existence, except possibly as photographed on the "blue ether" whither
Professor Tyndall hopes to go. A similar fatality, we may remember,
affected Sir Isaac Newton through his little dog Diamond: and my friend
in old days, Gilbert Burnett, the botanist, had to rewrite his index, a
heartrending labour, because a careless housemaid lit a fire with it.

10. And this further reminds me of the perils to which an author's MSS.
are perpetually exposed; _e.g._, before I put a spring lock on my study
at Albury (where, by the way, I wrote several of my early Proverbial
chapters with a child on my knee) I used to find my papers regularly put
out of order by the maid arranging the room; and upon my cautioning her
not to destroy anything, I was horrified by the unconscious Audrey's
instant reply, "O sir! I never burns no papers but what is spoilt by
being written on." Again, I remember to have cautioned my Suffolk
friend, Mrs. Crabtree, who had a fine library, not to keep her servants
short of firepaper, as they might possibly help themselves out of bound
books; whereat she was indignant, as if I was traducing a favourite
menial: however, I went round with her, unfortunately proving the
delinquency by exhibiting several handsome volumes with middle leaves
torn out!--Once more, in the prehistoric days when we sported with loose
powder and shot and paper wadding, I was a guest for some days in
September with James Maclaren at Ticehurst, and recollect his horror at
finding that the luncheon sandwiches were wrapped in some of his most
precious MSS.--for he was writing a treatise on finance, and these
leaves were covered with calculations--and that his shooting-party were
ramming down their charges with the recorded labour of his brains! It
was at Maclaren's that I once tasted squirrel; his woods were infested
with the pretty creatures, which the keeper shot, and after keeping the
skin gave the carcase to the cook: it tasted like very nutty rabbit: but
I protested it was a greater outrage than lark-pudding, which I had
recently seen at the Judges' Sentence dinner at Newgate, and said it was
a shame to eat the sweet songsters. At Maclaren's I learnt the origin of
"high" as applied to eatables. His game-larder was a tower of many bars,
the lowest containing a to-day's shooting, the next yesterday's, and so
forth, always moving up; hence the stalest were at the top, and so most
serviceable as least fresh. Trench on words would approve this reason
for "high" game.

11. _Providence._

I.

"Lo! we are led; we are guided and guarded
Carefully, kindly, by night and by day;
Punish'd belike, or haply rewarded,
As we go wrong or go right on the way;
Wisdom and Mercy, twin angels of kindness,
Take by both hands the child lost in the night,
Leading him safely, in spite of his blindness,
Guiding him well through the dark to the light.

II.

"All things are ordered,--the least as the greatest;
Motes have their orbits as fixt as a star,--
And thou may'st mark, if humbly thou waitest,
Providence working in all things that are:
Nothing shall fail in its ultimate object,
Good must outwrestle all evil at last;
God is the King, and creation His subject,
And the great future shall ransom the past.

III.

"Ay, and this present,--perplexing, degrading--
None may despise it as futile or worse;
Swift as it flieth, dissolving and fading,
'Tis the wing'd seed of some blessing or curse.
Telescope, microscope,--which hath most wonder?
Infinite great, or as infinite small?
Musical silence, or world-splitting thunder?--
He that made all things inhabits them all.

IV.

"Yea; for this present,--each inch and each second
Hath its own soul in a thought or a word;
Ev'n as I watch, God's finger hath beckon'd,
Ev'n as I wait, God's whisper is heard!
Trifles, some judge them, that finger, that whisper,--
But on such pivots vast issues revolve;
Those are the watchful reminders of Mizpah,
Jazer and Bethel, Life's secret to solve!

V.

"Mizpah,--for carefulness, honour, uprightness;
Jazer,--by penitence, meekness, and faith;
Bethel,--in foretastes of gladness and brightness,--
These are the keynotes to life out of death:
Providence bidding, and prudence obeying,
Thou shalt have peace from beginning to end,--
Thankfully, trustfully, instantly praying,
Walking with God as thy Father and Friend."

12. Apropos to my mention of Mortimer Collins' visit to Albury on
another page, I make this extract from his "Pen Sketches by a Vanished
Hand," vol. i. pp. 167, 168:--

"_A Walk through Surrey._

"At Albury I called upon a poet,--one whom critics love to assail, but
who derides critics and arrides the public. Pleasant indeed is the fine
old house, with emerald lawn and stately trees, wherein he resides. Not
Horace in his Sabine farm, nor Catullus at Tiburs, had a more poetic
retreat than the author of "Proverbial Philosophy" at Albury. But, like
Catullus, the advent of May had set the poet longing for a flight far
away:

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