CHAPTER I.

CONCERNING BYGONES (PREFATORY)

IT was a saying of Dryden that "Anything, though ever so little, which a man speaks of himself, in my opinion, is still too much."  This depends upon what a writer says.  No man is required to give an opinion of himself.  Others will do that much better, if he will wait.  But if a man may not speak of himself at all—reports of adventure, of personal endeavour, or of service, will be largely impossible.  To relate is not to praise.  The two things are quite distinct.  Othello's imperishable narrative of his love of Desdemona contained no eulogy of himself.  A story of observation, of experience, or of effort, or estimate of men or of opinions, I may venture upon—is written for the reader alone.  The writer will be an entirely negligible quantity.

    Lord Rosebery, who can make proverbs as well as cite them, lately recalled one which has had great vogue in its day, namely, "Let bygones be bygones."  Life would be impossible or very unpleasant if every one persisted in remembering what had better be forgotten.  Proverbs are like plants: they have a soil and climate under which alone they flourish.  Noble maxims have their limitations.  Few have universal applicability.  If, for instance, the advice to "let bygones be bygones" be taken as universally true, strange questions arise.  Are mistakes never more to teach us what to avoid?  Are the errors of others no more to be a warning to us?  Is the Book of Experience to be closed?  Is no more history to be written?  If so philosophy could no longer teach wisdom by examples, for there would no longer be any examples to go upon.  If all the mistakes of mankind and all the miscalculations of circumstance be forgotten, the warnings of the sages will die with them.

    He who has debts, or loans not repaid, or promises not kept, or contracts unfulfilled in his memory, had better keep them there until he has made what reparation he can.  The Bygone proverb does not apply to him.  There are other derelictions of greater gravity than fall under the head of intellectual petty larceny, such as the conscious abandonment of principle, or desertion of a just cause, which had better be kept in mind for rectification.

    If an admiral wrecked his ships, or a general lost his army, or a statesman ruined his country, by flagrant want of judgment—ever so conscientiously—it is well such things should be borne in mind by those who may renew, by fresh appointment, these opportunities of calamity.  It would be to encourage incapacity were such bygones consigned to oblivion.  It may be useless to dwell upon "spilt milk," but further employment of the spiller may not be prudent.

    Slaves of the saying, "Let bygones perish," would construct mere political man-traps, which never act when depredators are about.  In human affairs bygones have occurred worth remembering as guides for the future.

    It is said that "greatness is thrust upon a man"—what is meant is a position of greatness.  Greatness lies in the quality of the individual, and cannot be "thrust" on any man.  It is true that intrinsic greatness is often left unrecognised.  It would be a crime against progress were these cases, when known, consigned to forgetfulness.  Noble thoughts as well as noble acts are worth bearing in mind, however long ago they may have occurred.

    My friend Joseph Cowen, who from his youth had regarded me as a chartered disturber of the unreasoning torpidity of the public conscience, described me as an agitator.  All the while I never was a Pedlar of Opinions.  I never asked people to adopt mine, but to reason out their own.  I merely explained the nature of what I took to be erroneous in theological and public affairs.  Neither did I find fault with prevailing ideas, save where I could, or thought I could, suggest other principles of action more conducive to the welfare of all who dwell in cottages or lodgings—for whom I mainly care.  I was for equal opportunities for all men, guaranteed by law, and for equitable participation in profit among all who, by toil of hand or brain, contributed to the wealth of the State.

    Yet, though I never obtruded my convictions, neither did I conceal them.  No public questioner ever went empty away,—if his inquiry was relevant and I had the knowledge he sought.  Sometimes, as at Cheltenham (in 1842), when an inquiry was malicious and the reply penal, the questioner got his answer.  My maxim was that of Professor Blackie:

Thus, without intending it, I came to be counted an "agitator."

    As to the matter of the following pages, they relate, as all autobiographical reminiscences do, to events that are past. But whether they relate to acts, or events, or opinions, to tragedy or gaiety, they are all meant to fulfil one condition—that of having instruction or guidance of some kind in them-which bring them within the class of " bygones worth remembering."

    One day as I was walking briskly along Fleet Street, a person in greater haste than myself running down Johnson's Court collided with me, and both of us fell to the ground.  On rising, I said, "If you knocked me down, never mind; if I knocked you down, I beg your pardon."  He did not reciprocate my forgiveness, thinking I had run against him intentionally.  Nevertheless, I say to any resenting reader who does me mischief, "never mind."  If I have done him any harm it has been unwittingly, and I tender him real apologies.

 
CHAPTER II

PERSONAL INCIDENTS.

THESE pages being autobiographic in their nature, something must be said under this head.

    I was born April 13, 1817, which readers complained I omitted to state in a former work [1] of a similar kind to this, probably thinking it a "Bygone" of no importance.

*                *                *

    It was in 1817 that Robert Owen informed mankind that "all the religions in the world were in error," which was taken to mean that they were wrong throughout; whereas all the "Prophet of the City of London Tavern" sought to prove was that all faiths were in error so far as they rested on the dogma that men can believe if they will—irrespective of evidence whatever may be the force of it before them.  Mr. Owen's now truistical statement set the dry sticks of every church aflame for seventy years.  In many places the ashes smoulder still.  By blending Theology with Sociology, the Churches mixed two things better kept apart.  Confusion raged for years on a thousand platforms and pulpits.  I mention this matter because it was destined to colour and occupy a large portion of my life.

*                *                *

    The habit of my thoughts is to run into speeches, as the thoughts of a poet run into verse; but if there be a more intrinsic characteristic of my mind it is accurately described in the words of Coleridge:

    "I am by the law of my nature a Reasoner.  A person who should suppose I meant by that word, an arguer, would not only not understand me, but would understand the contrary of my meaning.  I can take no interest whatever in hearing or saying anything merely as a fact—merely as having happened.  I must refer to something within me before I can regard it with any curiosity or care.  I require in everything a reason why the thing is at all, and why it is there or then rather than elsewhere or at another time."

    This may be why I entitled the first periodical edited in my name, The Reasoner.

*                *                *

    My firstborn child, Madeline, perished while I was in Gloucester Prison. [2]  There is no other word which described what happened in 1842.  In 1895 (as I had always intended), I had a brass tablet cast bearing the simple inscription—

    This tablet I had placed on the wall over the grave where the poor child lay.  The grave is close to the wall.  The cemetery authorities had objections to the word "Perished."  When I explained to them the circumstances of Madeline's death, they permitted its erection, on my paying a cemetery fee of two guineas.  The tablet will endure as long as the cemetery wall lasts.  The tablet is on the left side of the main entrance to the cemetery, somewhat obscured by trees now.

*                *                *

    Dr. Samuel Smiles published a book on Self Help in 1859.  In 1857, two years earlier, I had used the same title "Self-Help by the People."  In a later work, "Self-Help, a Hundred Years Ago," the title was continued.  I had introduced it into Co-operation, where it became a watchword.  I have wondered whether Dr. Smiles borrowed the name from me.  He knew me in 1841, when he was editing the Leeds Times to which I was a contributor.  He must have seen in Mill's " Principles of Political Economy," "Self-Help by the People—History of Co-operation in Rochdale," quoted in Mill's book (book iv. chap, viii.),

    The phrase "Science is the Providence of Life" was an expression I had used in drawing up a statement of Secular Principles twenty-four years before I found it in the poem of Akenside's.

*                *                *

    Two things of the past I may name as they indicate the age of opinions, by many supposed to be recent.  Co-operators are considered as intending the abolition of competition, but as what we call nature—human, animal, and insect—is founded upon competition, nobody has the means of abolishing it.  In the first number of the Reasoner, June 3, 1846, in the first article, I stated that Mr. Owen and his friends proclaimed co-operation as the "Corrector of the excesses of competition in social life"—a much more modest undertaking than superseding it.

*                *                *

    The second thing I name that I wrote in the same number of the Reasoner is a short paper on "Moral Mathematics," setting forth that there is a mathematics of morality as well as of lines and angles.  There are problems in morality, the right solution of which contributes as much to mental discipline as any to be found in Euclid.  These I thus set forth—

Problem 1.
    Given—an angry man to answer without being angry yourself.

Problem 2.
    Given—an opponent full of bitterness and unjust insinuations to reply to without asperity or stooping to counter insinuations.

Problem 3.
    Given—your own favourite truths to state without dogmatism, and to praise without pride, adducing with fairness the objections to them without disparaging the judgment of those who hold the objections.

Problem 4.
    Given—an inconsistent and abusive opponent.  It is required to reply to him by argument, convincing rather than retorting.  All opportunities of "thrashing" him are to be passed by, all pain to be saved him as far as possible, and no word set down whose object is not the opponent's improvement.

Problem 5.
    Given—the error of an adversary to annihilate with the same vigour with which you could annihilate him.

Problem 6.
    Required—out of the usual materials to construct a public body, who shall tolerate just censure and despise extravagant praise.

*                *                *

    One day I found a piece of twisted paper which I picked up thinking I had dropped it myself.  I found in it a gold ring with a snake's head.  It was so modest and curious that I wore it.  Four years after, on a visit to Mr. W. H. Duignan, at Rushall Hall, on the border of Cannock Chase, I lost it.  Four days later I arrived by train at Rugby Station with live heavy-footed countrymen.  I went to the refreshment room.  On my return only one man was in the carriage.  The sun was shining brightly on the carriage floor, and there in the middle, lay, all glittering and conspicuous, my lost ring unseen and untrodden.  I picked it up with incredulity and astonishment.  How it came there or could come there, or being there, how it could escape the heavy feet of the passengers who went out, or the eyes of the one remaining, I cannot to this day conceive.  After I had lost it, I had walked through Kidderminster, Dudley Castle, and Birmingham, and searched for it several times.  I had dressed and undressed four times.  I lost it finally during Lord Beaconsfield's last Government, at the great Drill Hall meeting at Blackheath, [3] in a jingo crush made to prevent Mr. Gladstone entering to speak there on the Eastern policy of that day.  In future times should the ground be excavated, the spot where I stood will be marked with gold—the only place so marked by me in this world.

    It is probably vanity—though I disguise it under the name of pride—that induces me to insert here certain incidents.  Nevertheless pride is the major motive.  When I have been near unto death, and have asked myself what has been the consolation of this life, I found it in cherished memories of illustrious persons of thought and action, whose friendship I had shared.  There are other incidents —as Harriet Martineau's Letter to Lloyd Garrison, Tyndall's testimony, elsewhere quoted—which will never pass from my memory.

*                *                *

    The first dedication to me was that of a poem by Allen Davenport, 1843—an ardent Whitechapel artisan.  The tribute had value in my eyes, coming from one of the toiling class—and being a recognition on the part of working men of London, that I was one of their way of thinking and could be trusted to defend the interests of industry.

*                *                *

    The next came from the theological world—a quite unexpected incident in those days.  The Rev. Henry Crosskey dedicated his "Defence of Religion " to me.  He was of the priestly profession, but had a secular heart, and on questions of freedom at home and abroad he could be counted upon, as though he was merely human.  The dedication brought Mr. Crosskey into trouble with Dr. Martineau.  Unitarians were personally courteous to heretics in private, but they made no secret that they were disinclined to recognise them in public.  Dr. Martineau shared that reservation.

Letter from Dr. James Martineau to Rev. W. H. Crosskey:—

    "It is very difficult to say precisely how far our respect for honest conviction, and indignation at a persecuting temper, should carry us in our demonstrations towards men unjustly denounced.  I do confess that, while I would stoutly resist any ill-usage of such a man as Holyoake, or any attempt to gag him, I could hardly dedicate a book to him: this act seeming to imply a special sympathy and admiration directed upon that which distinctively characterises the man.  Negative defence from injury is very different from positive homage.  After all, Holyoake's principles are undeniably more subversive of the greatest truths and genuine basis of human life than the most unrelenting orthodoxy.  However, it is a generous impulse to appear as the advocate of a man whom intolerance unjustly reviles." [4]

    Thus he gave the young minister to understand—that while there was nothing wrong in his having respect for me, he need not have made it public.  At that time it was chivalry in Mr. Crosskey to do what he did, for which I respected him all his days. .

    A third dedication I thought more of, and still value, came from the political world, and was the first literary testimony of my interest in it.  It came from "Mark Rutherford" (William Hale White), who knew everything I knew, and a good deal more.  He inscribed to me, 1866, a remarkable "Argument for the Extension of the Franchise," which had all the characteristics of statement, which have brought him renown in later years.  He said in his prefatory letter to me: "If my argument does any service for Reform, Reformers will have to thank you for it, as they have to thank you for a good many other things."  They were words to prize.

*                *                *

    Recently a letter came from Professor Goldwin Smith, who was Cobden's admiration and envy, as he once told me, for the power of expressing an argument or a career in a sentence.  His letter to me was as follows:—

    "You and I have lived together through many eventful and changeful years. The world in these years has, I hope and believe, grown better than it was when we came into it.  In respect of freedom of opinion and industrial justice, the two objects to which your life has been most devoted, real progress has certainly been made."

    The main objects of my life are here distinguished and expressed in six words.

*                *                *

    Reviewers of the autobiographic volumes preceding these, complained that they contained too little about myself.  If they read the last four paragraphs given here they will be of opinion that I have said enough now.

*                *                *

    At the Co-operative Congress held in Gloucester, 1879, a number of delegates went down to see the gaol.  When they arrived before it, Mr. Abraham Greenwood, of Rochdale, exclaimed, "Take off your hats, lads!  That's where Holyoake was imprisoned."  They did so.  That incident—when it was related to me—impressed me more than any thing else connected with Co-operation.  I did not suppose those tragical six months in that gaol were in the minds of co-operators, or that any one had respect for them.

*                *                *

    The chapter, "Things which went as they Would," shows that serving co-operators had its inconveniences, but there were compensatory incidents which I recount with pleasure.  One was their contribution to the Annuity of 1876, which Mr. Hughes himself commended to them at the London Congress.  It was owing to Major Evans Bell and Mr. Walter Morrison that the project was successful.

*                *                *

    The other occurred at the Doncaster Congress, 1903.  In my absence a resolution had been passed thanking me for services I had rendered in Ten Letters in Defence of Co-operation.  When I rose to make acknowledgment, all the large audience stood up.  It was the first time I had ever been so received anywhere, showing that services which seemed un-noted at the time, lived in remembrance.

    Here I may cite a letter from Wendell Phillips, Of the great American Abolitionists, Phillips, with his fine presence and intrepid eloquence, was regarded as the "noblest Roman of them all."  Theodore Parker, he described to me as the Jupiter of the pulpit; and Russell Lowell has drawn Lloyd Garrison, in the famous verse—

I corresponded with them in their heroic days. It is one of the letters of Phillips to me I quote here:—

BOSTON,

"July 22, 1874.

"MY DEAR SIR,—I ought long ago to have thanked you for sending me copies of your pamphlets on John Stuart Mill and the Rochdale Pioneers and with so kind and partial a recognition of my co-operation with you in your great cause.

    "That on Mill was due certainly to a just estimate of him, but how sad that human jackals should make it necessary.  That on Co-operation I read and read again, welcoming the light you throw on it, for one of my most hopeful stepping-stones to a higher future.  Thank you for the lesson—it cleared one or two dark places—not the first by any means—for I've read everything of yours I could lay my hands on.  There was one small volume on Rhetoric—'Public Speaking and Debate,' methods of address, hints towards effective speech, etc.—which I studied faithfully, until some one to whom I had praised and lent it, acting probably on something like Coleridge's rule, that books belong to those who most need then—never returned me my well-thumbed essay, to my keen regret.  Probably you never knew that we had printed your book.  This was an American reprint—wholly exhausted—proof that it did good service.  We reprinted, some ten years ago, one of your wisest tracts, the 'Difficulties that obstruct Co-operation.'  It did us yeoman service.  But enough, I shall beg you to accept a volume of old speeches printed long ago, because it includes my only attempt to criticise you—which you probably never saw.  In it I will put, when I mail it, the last and best photograph of Sumner, and if you'll exchange, I'll add one of
                                             "Yours faithfully, and ever,
                                                                                "WENDELL PHILLIPS.
"Mr. G. J. Holyoake."

*                *                *

    With Mr. Charles Bradlaugh I had personal relations all his life.  I took the chair for him at the first public lecture he delivered.  I gave him ready applause and support.  At the time of what was called his "Parliamentary struggle," I was entirely with him and ready to help him.  It was with great reluctance and only in defence of principle, to which I had long been committed, that I appeared as opposed to him.  He claimed to represent Free Thought, with which I had been identified long before his day.  My conviction was that a Free Thinker should have as much courage, consistency, and self-respect as any Apostle, or Jew, or Catholic, or Quaker.  All had in turn refused to make a profession of opinion they did not hold, at the peril of death, or, as in the case of O'Connell and the Jews, at the certainty of exclusion from Parliament.  They had only to take an oath, to the terms of which they could not honestly subscribe.  Mr. Bradlaugh had no scruple about doing this.  In the House of Commons he openly kissed the Bible, in which he did not believe—a token of reverence he did not feel.  He even administered to himself the oath, which was contrary to his professed convictions.  This seemed to be a reflection upon the honour of Free Thought.  Had I not dissented from it, I should have been a sharer in the scandal, and Free Thought—so far as I represented it—would have been regarded as below the Christian or Pagan level.

    The key to Mr. Bradlaugh's character, which unlocks the treasure-house of his excellences and defects, and enables the reader to estimate him justly, is the perception that his one over-riding motive and ceaseless aim was the ascendancy of the right through him.  It was this passion which inspired his best efforts, and also led to certain aberration of action.  But what we have to remember now, and permanently, is that it was ascendancy of the right in political and theological affairs that he mainly sought for, fought for, and vindicated.  It is this which will long cause his memory to be cherished.

    At the time of his death I wrote honouring notices of his career in the Bradford Observer and elsewhere, which were reproduced in other papers.  Otherwise, I found opportunity on platforms of showing my estimate of his character and public services.  I had never forgotten an act of kindness he had, in an interval of goodwill, done me.  When disablement and blindness came in 1876, he collected from the readers of his journal £170 towards a proposed annuity for me.  It was a great pleasure to me to repay that kindness by devising means (which others neither thought of nor believed in) of adding thrice that sum to the provision being made for his survivors.  It was a merit in him that devotion to pursuits of public usefulness did not, in his opinion, absolve him from keeping a financial promise, as I knew, and have heard friends who aided him testify—a virtue not universal among propagandists.  No wonder the coarse environments of his early life lent imperiousness to his manners.  In later years, when he was in the society of equals, where masterfulness was less possible and less necessary, he acquired courtesy and a certain dignity—the attribute of conscious power.  He was the greatest agitator, within the limits of law, who appeared in my time among the working people.  Of his own initiative he incurred no legal danger, and those who followed him were not led into it.  He was a daring defender of public right, and not without genius in discovering methods for its attainment.  One form of genius lies in discovering developments of a principle which no one else sees.  Had he lived in the first French Revolution, he had ranked with Mirabeau and Danton.  Had he been with Paine in America, he had spoken "Common Sense" on platforms.  He died before being able to show in Parliament the best that was in him.  Though he had no College training like Professor Fawcett, Indian lawyers found that Mr. Bradlaugh had a quicker and greater grasp of Indian questions than the Professor.  It was no mean distinction—it was, indeed, a distinction any man might be proud to have won—that John Stuart Mill should have left on record, in one of his latest works, his testimony to Mr. Bradlaugh's capacity, which he discerned when others did not.  Like Cobbett, the soldiers' barracks did not repress Bradlaugh's invincible passion for the distinction of a political career.  In the House of Commons he took, both in argument and debate, a high rank, and surpassed compeers there of a thousand times his advantages of birth and education.  That from so low a station he should have risen so high, and, after reaching the very platform of his splendid ambition, he should die in the hour of his opportunity of triumph, was one of the tragedies of public life, which touched the heart of the nation, in whose eyes Mr. Bradlaugh had become a commanding figure.

*                *                *

    It was in connection with the controversy concerning the Oath that I received a letter from John Stuart Mill, which when published in the Daily News, excited much surprise.  Mr. Mill was of opinion, that the oath, being made the condition of obtaining justice, ordinary persons might take it.  But one who was known to disbelieve the terms of it, and had for years publicly written and spoken to that effect, had better not take it.  This was the well-known Utilitarian doctrine that the consequences of an act are the justification of it.  Francis Place had explained to me that Bentham's doctrine aas that the sacrifice of liberty or life was justifiable only on the ground that the public gained by it.  A disciple should have very strong convictions who differs from his master, and I differ with diffidence from Mr. Mill as to the propriety of carrying the Utilitarian doctrine into the domain of morals.  Truth is higher than utility, and goes before it.  Truth is a measure of utility, and not utility the measure of truth.  Conscience is higher than consequence.  We are bound first to consider what is right.  There may be in some cases, reasons which justify departure from the right.  But these are exceptions.  The general rule is—Truth has the first claim upon us.

    To take an oath when you do not believe in an avenging Deity who will enforce it, is to lie and know that you lie.  This surely requires exceptional justification.  It is nothing to the purpose to allege that the oath is binding upon you.  The security of that are the terms of the oath.  The law knows no other.  To admit the terms to be unnecessary is to abolish the oath.

*                *                *

    When a youth, attending lectures at the Mechanics' Institution, I soon discerned that the more eminent speakers were the clearer.  They knew their subjects, were masters of the outlines, which by making bold and plain, we were instructed.  Outline is the beginning of art and the charm of knowledge.  Remembering this, I found no difficulty in teaching very little children to write in a week.

    It is a great advantage to children to take care that their first notions are true.  The primary element of truth is simplicity—with children it is their first fascination.  I had only to show them that the alphabet meant no more than a line and a circle.  A little child can make a "straight stroke" " and a round O."

    The alphabet is made up of fifteen straight line and eleven curved line letters.  The root of the fifteen straight line letters is | placed in various ways.  The root of the eleven curved line letters is O or parts of O and | joined together.

    A is made by two straight lines leaning against each other at the top, and a line across the middle.

    H is made of two upright lines with a straight line between them.

    V is made of two straight lines meeting at the bottom. If two upright lines are added to the V it becomes M.

    Two V's put together make W.  The letters L and T and X and Z make themselves, so easy is it to place the straight lines which compose them.

O makes itself.  A short line makes it into Q.  If the side of O be left open it is a C.  If two half O's are joined together they make S.  Half O and an upright line make D.  An upright line and a half O make P.  Another half added and B is made.

    After a second or third time a child will understand the whole alphabet.

    Such is the innate faculty of imitation and construction in children that they will put the letters together themselves when the method is made plain to them, and within a week will compose their own name and their mother's.  At the same time they learn to read as well as to write.  What they are told they are apt to forget, what they write they remember.

    Reason is the faculty of seeing what follows as a consequence from what is, but to define distinction well is a divine gift.  My one aim was to make things clear.

*                *                *

    One of my suggestions to the young preachers, who had two sermons on Sunday to prepare, was that they should give all their strength to the evening discourse and arrange with their congregation to deliver the other from one of the old divines of English or Continental renown, which would inform as well as delight hearers.  It would be an attraction to the outside public.  Few congregations know anything of the eloquence, the happy and splendid illustrations and passages of thought to be found in the fathers of the Church of every denomination.  Professor Francis William Newman, whose wide knowledge and fertility of thought had few equals in his day, told me that he should shrink from the responsibility of having to deliver a proficient and worthy discourse fifty-two times a year.  Anyhow, for the average preacher, better one bright ruddy discourse, than two pale-faced sermons every Sunday.

*                *                *

    Those who remained true to Chartism till the end of it are recorded in the following paragraph under the title of the "National Charter Association," which appeared in Reynolds's Newspaper, January 4, 1852 :—

    "On Wednesday evening last, the scrutineers appointed by the metropolitan localities attended at the office, 14, Southampton Street, Strand, and having inspected the votes received, gave the following as the result, in favour of the following nine:—

    Ernest Jones (who received 900 votes), Feargus O'Connor, John Arnott, T. M. Wheeler, James Grassby, John Shaw, W. J. Linton, J. J. Bezer, G. J. Holyoake.

    "Messrs. J. B. O'Brien, Gerald Massey, and Arthur Trevelyan having declined to serve, the votes received on their behalf have not been recognised.

    "We, the undersigned, hereby declare the nine persons first named to be duly elected to form the Executive Committee for the ensuing year.

                            "JOHN WASHINGTON, City Locality.
                            "EDWD. JOHN LOOMES, Finsbury Locality.

    "December 31, 1851."

*                *                *

    After I became an octogenarian, I was asked whether my years might be ascribed to my habits.  I could only explain what my habits were.  In the first half of my life I ate whatever came to hand, and as not enough came I easily observed moderation.  But then I was disposed to be moderate on principle, having read in the Penny Magazine, about 1830, that Dr. Abernethy told a lady "she might eat anything eatable in moderation."  In the second and later half of my life I gave heed to Carnaro, and sought to limit each meal to the least quantity necessary for health.  The limitation of quantity included liquids as well as solids, decreasing the amount of both "in relation to age and activity," as Sir Henry Thompson advised.  Not thinking much of meat, I limited that to a small amount, and cereals to those that grow above ground.  A tepid bath for the eye (on the recommendation of the Rev. Dr. Molesworth, of Rochdale) and a soap bath for the body every morning ends the catalogue of my habits.

    My general mode of mind has been to avoid excess in food, in pleasure, in work, and in expectation.  By not expecting much, I have been saved from worry if nothing came.  When anything desirable did arrive, I had the double delight of satisfaction and surprise.  Shakespeare's counsel

ought to be part of every code of health.

    The conduciveness of my habits to longevity may be seen in this.  More than forty of my colleagues, all far more likely to live than myself, have long been dead.  Had I been as strong as they, I also should have died as they did.  Lacking their power of hastening to the end, I have lingered behind.

    For the rest—

    The principles and aims of earlier years are confirmed by experience at 88.  Principles are like plants and flowers.  They suit only those whom they nourish.  Nothing is adapted to everybody.

    Goethe said: "When I was a youth I planted a cherry-tree, and watched its growth with delight.  Spring frost killed the blossoms, and I had to wait another year before the cherries were ripe—then the birds ate them—another year the caterpillars ate them—another year a greedy neighbour stole them—another year the blight withered them.  Nevertheless, when I have a garden again, I shall plant another cherry-tree."  My years now are "dwindling to their shortest span"; if I should have my days over again, I shall plant my trees again—certain that if they do grow they will yield verdure and fruit in some of the barren places of this world.

 
CHAPTER III.

OTHER INSTANCES

MY first public discussion in London was with Mr. Passmore Edwards—personally, the handsomest adversary I ever met.  A mass of wavy black hair and pleasant expression made him picturesque.  He was slim, alert, and fervid.  The subject of debate was the famous delineation of the Bottle, by George Cruikshank, which I regarded as a libel on the wholesome virtue of Temperance.  Exaggerations which inform and do not deceive, as American humour, or Swift's Lilliputians, Aztecs, and giants of Brobdingnag, have instruction and amusement.  The exaggeration intended to deride and intimidate those who observe moderation is a hurtful and misleading extreme.  Mr. Edwards took the opposite view.  Cruikshank could not be moderate, and he did right to adopt the rule of absolute abstinence.  It was his only salvation.  To every man or woman of the Cruikshank tendency I would preach the same doctrine.  To all others I, as fervently, commend the habit of use without abuse.  Without that power no man would live a month.  Had Mr. Edwards been of this way of thinking, there had been no debate between us.

    Mr. Edwards had much reason on his side.  Mankind are historically regarded as possessing insufficiency of brains, and it is bad economics to put an incorrigible thief into their mouths to steal away what brains they have.

    I had respect for Mr. Edwards' side of the argument.  For when a man makes a fool of himself, or fails to keep an engagement, or departs, in his behaviour from his best manner—through drink—he should take the next train to the safe and serene land of Abstinence.

    The first person who mentioned to me the idea of a halfpenny newspaper was Mr. Passmore Edwards.  One night as we were walking down Fleet Street from Temple Bar, when the Bar stood where the Griffin now stands.  Mr. Edwards asked me, as I had had experience in the publishing trade whether I thought a halfpenny newspaper would pay, which evidently had for some time occupied his mind.  The chief difficulty I foresaw was, would newsagents give it a chance?  It afterwards cost the house of Cassells'—the first to make the experiment—many thousands.  The Workman, in which I had a department, was intended, I was told, to be a forerunner of the halfpenny paper.  But that title would never do, as I ventured to predict.  Workmen, as a rule with no partnership in profits, had enough of work without buying a paper about it.  Tradesmen, middle-class and others, did not want to be taken for workmen, and the Workman was discontinued.  But, strange to say, the same paper issued under the title of Work became successful.  Everybody was interested in work but not in being workmen.  Such are the subtleties of titles!  Their right choice—is it art or instinct?  The Echo was the name fixed upon for the first halfpenny paper.  Echo of what? was not indicated.  It excluded expectations of originality.  Probably curiosity was the charm.  It committed no one to any side.  There were always more noises about than any one could listen to, and many were glad to hear the most articulate.  I wrote articles in the earliest numbers under the editorship of Sir Arthur Arnold.

*             *            *

    The House of Allsop, as known to the world of progress in the last century, is ended.  The first who gave it public interest was Thomas Allsop, who assisted Robert Owen in 1832 in the Gray's Inn Lane Labour Exchanges.  He was a watchful assistant of those who contributed to the public service without expecting or receiving requital.  His admiration of genius always took the form of a gift—a rare but encouraging form of applause.  Serjeant Talfourd somewhere bears testimony to the generous assistance Mr. Allsop rendered to Hazlitt, Lamb, and Coleridge.  To Lamb, he continually sent gifts, and Coleridge dined at his table every Sunday for nineteen years.  Landor, who had always nobility of character, and was an impulsive writer—represented Mr. Allsop's interest in European freedom as proceeding from "vanity," forgetful of his own letter to Jessie Meriton White, offering £100 to any assassin of Napoleon III.; and John Forster preserves Landor's remark upon Mr. Allsop, but does not, so far as I remember, give Landor's Assassin Letter.  The fact was, no man less sought publicity or disliked it more than Mr. Allsop.  When Feargus O'Connor was elected member for Nottingham, Mr. Allsop qualified him by conferring upon him lands bringing an income of £300.  He divided his Lincoln estate into allotments for working men, but he never mentioned these things himself.  His son Robert held his father's intellectual views.  His eldest son Thomas, who was class-mate with Mr. Dixon Galpin at Queenwood, a considerable landowner in British Columbia, was the philosopher of the family, and like Archbishop Whately, had a power of stating them with ever apt and ready illustrations.

    They were like Mr. Owen, Conservative in politics; but in social and mental matters they were intrepid in welcoming new truth.  It was at Thomas's suggestion that I omitted his father's name altogether in my chapter, "Mr. Secretary Walpole and the Jacobin's Friend." [5]  Landor was quite wrong, there was no "vanity" in the Allsop family.  Were Thomas Allsop the younger now living I should not write these paragraphs.  As it is, I may say that I owed to his generosity an annuity of £100.  He commenced it by a subscription of £200, and by Mr. Robert Applegarth's friendly secretaryship, which had devotion and inspiration in it, a committee to which the Rev. Dr. Joseph Parker, with his intrepid tolerance, gave his name, was formed, and an annuity of £100 was purchased for me.

*             *            *

    When the Taxes on Knowledge were repealed, Mr. Collet and I attempted to procure the repeal of the Passenger Tax on Railways.  For forty years after the imposition of the tax of Lord Halford, 1832, the workman was taxed who went in search of an employer.  When a poor sailor, arriving in London after a long voyage, desired to visit his poor mother in Glasgow, the Government added to his fare a tax of three shillings, to encourage him in filial affection.  In the interests of locomotion and trade, two or three associations had attempted to get this pernicious tax repealed, without success.  It was remarked in Parliament in 1877 that no committee representing the working class asked for the repeal of this discreditable impost, which most concerned them.  This was the reason of the formation of the Travelling Tax Abolition Committee, of which Mr. Collet became secretary and the chairman. We were assisted by an influential committee of civic and industrial leaders.  After six years' agitation we were mainly instrumental (that was in Mr. Gladstone's days) in obtaining the repeal of the penny a mile tax on all third-class fares, effected by Mr. Childers in 1883, which ever since has put into the pocket of working-class travellers £400,000 a year, besides the improved carriages and improved service the repeal has enabled railway companies to give.  We continued the committee many years longer in the hope of freeing the railways wholly from taxation, which still hampers the directors and is obstructive of commerce.  I was chairman for twenty-four years, during which time twenty-two of the committee died.  Our memorials, interviews with ministers, correspondence with officials, petitions to Parliament, public meetings and various publications, involved a large and incessant amount of work without payment of any kind.  Subsequently a committee of publicists, journalists and members of Parliament, for whom Mr. Applegarth was the secretary, caused £80 to be given to me, in recognition of my services.  Though it represented less than £4 a year as the salary of the chairman, it was valuable in my eyes from the persons who gave it, as they were not the persons much benefited by the work done, and who really taxed themselves on behalf of others.  A subscription of a halfpenny each from the working-class travellers who had profited by the repeal would have amounted to a handsome acknowledgment.  But from them it was impossible to collect it.  Testimonials, I believe, are often given by persons who generously subscribe for others upon whom the obligation of making it more properly rests.

    It would seem insensibility or ingratitude not to record, that on my eightieth birthday—now eight years ago—I was entertained at a numerously attended dinner party in the National Liberal Club, at which to my gratification, Mr. Walter Morrison presided.  The speakers, and distinction of many in the assembly, were a surprise, transcending all I had foreseen. The words of Mr. Morrison's speech, to use Tennyson's words, were like

in my memory.

    On my eighty-sixth birthday a reception was given me by the Ethical Society of South Place Chapel, Finsbury—the oldest Free Thought temple in London, where the duty of free inquiry was first proclaimed by W. J. Fox.  The place was filled with faces familiar and unfamiliar, from near and far, of artists, poets, publicists, journalists, philosophers, as at the National Liberal Club, but in greater numbers.  Lady Florence Dixie purchased a large and costly oil painting, [6] and sent it for me to present to the Library of the Rationalist Press Association.  Among the letters sent was one, the last sent to a public meeting, by Herbert Spencer.  The reader will pardon the pride I have in quoting it.

    Writing from 5, Percival Terrace, Brighton, March 28, 1903, Mr. Spencer said:

"I have not been out of doors since last August, and as Mr. Holyoake knows, it is impossible for me to join in the Reception to be given to him on the occasion of his eighty-sixth birthday. I can do nothing more than express my warm feeling of concurrence. Not dwelling upon his intellectual capacity, which is high, I would emphasise my appreciation of his courage, sincerity, truthfulness, philanthropy, and unwearied perseverance. Such a combination of these qualities, it will, I think, be difficult to find:"

*             *            *

    For a period I had the opportunity accorded me of editing a daily newspaper—The Sun.  The Rev. Dr. Joseph Parker had been my predecessor.  I was left at liberty to say whatever I pleased, and I did.  In one week I wrote twenty-nine articles.  But opulent opportunity of working was afforded me.  As I was paid ten times as much as I had received before, I thought myself in a paradise of , journalism.

    In the correspondence of Robert Owen, now in possession of the Co-operative Union Memorial Committee, Manchester, is the following letter from his customary legal adviser, who then resided at Hornsey.

"6, OLD JEWRY, LONDON,
"February 17, 1853.

"R. OWEN, Esq.,

"DEAR SIR,—I am glad to see your handwriting upon an envelope conveying to me a pamphlet of yours.

"Holyoake I expect will breakfast with me on Sunday morning.  He comes down by the railway to Hornsey, which leaves London at nine o'clock precisely.

"I am afraid it is too cold for you, and that the walk from the railway to our house, which is three quarters of a mile, may not be agreeable.

                                                               "Yours truly,
                                                                                          "W. H. ASHURST.
"H. will return about 12 or 1."

    After breakfast Mr. Owen walked briskly with me into town.  He was then eighty-two.  On his way he explained to me that, when walking as I often had done from Birmingham to Worcester, or from Huddersfield to Sheffield—to lecture, I should find it an advantage to use the horse road, as on the footpath there is more unevenness and necessity of deviation to allow persons to pass, which increases the fatigue of a day on foot.  So thoughtful and practical was the reputed visionary.

*             *            *

    Of letters on public affairs I confine myself to three instances.  When the South Kensington Exhibitions were in force, more than twenty thousand visitors a day thronged the Exhibition Road.  Mothers with their children had to cross the wide Museum Road, where policemen, stationed to protect the passengers, had enough to do to keep their own toes on their feet, in the undivided traffic of cabs.  I wrote to the Times suggesting that a lamp should be erected in the middle of the wide road serving as a light, a retreat, and a division of traffic.  All the cabmen who could write protested against the danger, or the necessity, and possibility of the proposal.  But it was done, to the great joy of mothers and advantage to the public.

*             *            *

    After the fall of the French Assassin at Sedan when Marshal Bazaine was hanging about Europe in obscurity and ignominy, Mr. Arthur Arnold proposed that he should be invited to a banquet in London.  Seeing that the citizens of Paris went out at night in bands of twenty or thirty heroically to help to raise the siege—on what ground could we offer to honour Bazaine, who with 192,000 soldiers under his command, was afraid to attempt it?  I asked the question in the Press, and the proposal, which had a sentiment of chivalry in it to a fallen general, and was commanding some concurrence—went out—like the Marshal—into outer darkness.

*             *            *

    When public opinion was in the balance respecting the South American War, Mr. Reverdy Johnson and a Copperhead colleague arrived in London and began to do a respectable business in public mystification.  From information supplied to me I wrote letters explaining the real nature of that sinister mission, in consequence of which the two emissaries of slavery made tracks for New York.

    But of instances, as of other things, there must be an end.

 
CHAPTER IV.

FIRST STEPS IN LITERATURE

SURELY environment is the sister of heredity?  Mr. Gladstone once said to me that "The longer he lived the more he thought of heredity."  Next to heredity is environment—the moulder of mankind.  My first passion was to be a prize-fighter.  Nature, however, had not made me that way.  I had no animosity of mind, and that form of contest was not to my taste.  But prize-fighting was part of the miasma the Napoleonic war had diffused in England.  It was in the air; it was the talk of the street.  "Hammer" Lane, so called from the iron blow he could deliver, was the local hero of the Ring in the Midlands in my youth.  He was a courtier of my eldest sister, and created in me a craving for fistic prowess.  I fought one small battle, but found that a lame wrist, which has remained permanent, cut me off from any prospect of renown in that pursuit.  Next, to be a circus jester seemed to me the very king of careers.  My idea was to leap into the arena exclaiming :—

    "Well, I never!  Did you ever?  I never did.''

    "Never did what?" the clown was to ask me, when my reply was to be:—

    "I could only disclose that before a Royal Commission"—alluding to a political artifice then coming into vogue in Parliament.  When a Minister did not know what to say to a popular demand, or found it inconvenient to say it if he did know, he would suggest a Commission to inquire into it, as is done to this day.

    Then the clown would demand, "What is the good of a Royal Commission?" when the answer would be: " Every good in the world to a Ministry, for before the Commission agreed as to the answer to be given, the public would forget what the question was."  Under this diversion of the audience, no one noticed that no answer was given to the original question put to the jester.  Whether I could have succeeded in this walk was never decided.  It was found that I lacked the loud, radiant, explosive voice necessary for circus effects, and I ceased to dream of distinction there.

    I suppose, like many others who could not well write anything, I thought poetry might be my latent—very latent—faculty.  So I began.  For all I knew, my genius, if I had any, might lie that way.  To "body forth things unknown," which I was told poets did, must be delightful.  To "build castles in the air"—as my means did not enable me to pay ground rent—was at least an economical project.  So I began with a question, as new Members of Parliament do, until they discover something to say.  My first production, which I hoped would be mistaken for a poem, was in the form of a "Question to a Pedestrian":—

    The critics said to me, as they said to Keats, to whom I bore no other resemblance, "This sort of thing will never do.  It is an imitation of Shenstone, or of one of the Shepherd and Shepherdess School of the Elizabethan era"—of whom I knew nothing.  So I was lost to the Muses, who, however, never missed me.

    But my career was not ended.  I was told there might be an opening for me in criticism, especially of poetry, as there were many persons great in the critical line, who could not write a verse themselves -and yet lived to become a terror to all who could.  My first effort in this direction was upon the book of a young poet whom I knew personally.  Not venturing upon longer pieces at first, I selected two sonnets—as the author, Emslie Duncan, called them.  The opening was very striking, and was thus expressed:—

    How natural is the exclamation, I began.  The poet invokes the Deity on the threshold of a great surprise.  Luther did the same in his famous hymn beginning—

"Great God!  What do mine eyes behold!"

    Our sonneteer may be said to have borrowed the exclamation from Luther. [7]  But we have no doubt the exclamation of our poet is purely original.  He next demands an interpretation of his vision.  It is early morning, though the poet does not mention it (great poets are suggestive, and stoop not to detail).  An evasive grey mist spreads everywhere, like the new fiscal policy of the Bentinckian type (then in the air), obscuring the landmarks of long-time safety.  Still there is one object visible.  The poet's eye in "fine frenzy rolling" sees something.  He is not sure of the personality that confronts him, and with agnostic precaution worthy of Huxley, he declines to say what it is—until he knows—and so contents himself with telling the reader it is a "figure" out shrimping.  The scene is most impressive.  As amateurs say, when they do not understand a picture they are praising, "It grows upon you."  So this marvellous sonnet grows upon the reader.  If there be not imagination and profundity here, we do not know where to look for it.

    Next our poet returns to town, and in Whitechapel meets with the statue of a lady attired only in a blouse.  Notwithstanding his astonishment he varies his abjuration, and exclaims

    This is unquestionably very fine.  True, there is some contradiction in nudity and attire; but splendid contradiction is an eternal element of poetry.  What would Milton's "Paradise Lost" be without it?  The reader cannot tell whether the surprise of the poet is at the lady or her drapery.  There is no use in asking a great poet what he meant in writing his brilliant lines.  If as candid as Browning, he would answer as Browning did, that "he had not the slightest idea what he meant."  Nothing remains for us but to congratulate the public on the advent of a new poet who is equally great on subjects of land or sea.

    There is a good deal of reviewing done on this principle, and reputations made by this sort of writing as fully without foundation, and I looked forward to further employment.

    The editor to whom I sent these primal specimens of my new vocation seemed undecided what to do with them—throw them into his waste-paper basket or submit them to his readers.  I assured him I had seen a number of criticisms less restrained than mine, on performances quite as slender as the sonnets I had described.  With kindly consideration, lest he might be repressing a rising genius in me, he asked me to give my opinion upon a charming little poem by Longfellow—to commend, as he hoped I could, as a new edition in which he was interested was about to be published.

    The object of the poet, I found, was to awaken certain young ladies, whose only fault consisted in getting up late in the morning.  The lines addressed to them, if I rightly remember, began thus:—

    This verse reminds the readers of Omar Khayyám.  Two ideas in it are his, and the terms used are his; but I resisted this temptation to imitate those popular critics, whose aim is not to discover the graces of a new poet, but his plagiarisms, and to show that everybody reproduces the ideas of everybody else, and prove that—

and of old, antediluvian dreams.  Disdaining this royal road to critical renown, I commenced by praising the enchanting invocation of the poet, who when the ladies heard it would leap out of bed and dress.  I observed that to the reader who did not look below the surface—did not "read between the lines," is the favourite phrase—the poem presented some mysteries of diction.  Instead of appearing as the angel in Leigh Hunt's "Abou Ben Adhem" did, who diffused himself in the room like a vision, these peripatetic visitants presented themselves like celestial postmen "knocking at the door."  Then why were they out so early themselves?  Had they more calls to make than they could well accomplish in the time allowed them?  Why were they "in haste"?  No wonder mankind lack repose if angels are in a hurry.  The Kingdom of the Blest is supposed to be the land of rest.  Manifestly these morning angels had to be back by a stipulated time, and like a tax-collector could make no second call.  Apparently Longfellow's angels are like Mr. Stead's favourite spirit Julia.  They are harassed with appointments, commissions, and cares.  It is of no use being a spirit if you cannot move about with regal leisureliness, such as was displayed by the first Shah of Persia who visited us.  The writer has seen nothing like it in any European monarch.  While in the lines now in question supernatural misgivings of angelic perturbation are awakened.  But as an example of poetry, irrespective of its meaning and suggestions, every reader will covet a new edition of the American poet, and no library could be complete without a copy upon its shelves.

    I had visited the poet at his Cambridge home, and was proud of the opportunity of adding ever so small an addition to the pyramid of regard raised to his memory.

    The editor looked dubious on reading this review, and said the higher criticism might be entertaining in theology, but the higher criticism of poetry, which dealt with its meaning, was a different thing and might not be well taken.  In vain I suggested that a poet ought to mean something, as Byron did, whose fascination is still real, and there was pathos and beauty, tragedy, tenderness and courtesy enough in the world to employ more poets than we have on hand.  I received no more commissions in the way of criticisms, and had to think of some other vocation.

    Some of the happiest evenings of younger days were spent in the rooms of university students.  It was pleasant to be near persons who dwelt in the kingdom of knowledge, who could wander at will on the mountain tops of science and literature, and have glimpses of unknown lands of light which I might never see.  Who has seen London under the reign of the sun, after a sullen, fitful season, knows how wondrous is the transformation.  Like the sheen of the gods the glittering rays descend, dispelling and absorbing the sombre clouds.  A radiance rests on turret and roof.  Then hidden creatures that crawl or fly come forth and put on golden tints.  The cheerless poor emerge from their fireless chambers with the grateful emotions of sun worshippers.

    How like is all this to the change which comes over the realm of ignorance!  Light does not change vegetation more than the light of knowledge changes the realm of the mind.  The thirsty crevices of thought drink in, as it were, the refreshing beams.  Once conscious of the liberty and power which comes of knowing—ignorance itself becomes eager, impatient—covetous of information.  Faculties unsuspected disclose themselves.  Qualities undreamed-of appear.  So it came to be my choice to enter the field of instruction.  It seemed to me a great thing to endow any, however few, in any way, however humble, with the cheeriness and strength of ideas.  True, I began to teach what I did not know—or knew but partially—yet not without personal advantage, since no one knows anything well until he has tried to teach it to another.  The dullest pupil will make his master sensible of defects in his own explanation.  Formerly, the dulness of a learner was supposed to discover the necessity of a cane, whereas all it proved was incapacity or unwillingness to take trouble—on the part of the teacher.  The result was that I wrote several elementary books of instruction.  All owed their existence, or whatever success attended them, to the experience of the class-room.

    All things have an end, as many observant people know, and before long I turned my attention to journalism.  I had read somewhere a saying of Aristotle—"Now I mean to speak conformably to the truth."  That seems every man's duty—if he speaks at all.  Anyhow, Aristotle's words appeared to constitute a good rule for a journalist.  I had never heard or never heeded the injunction of Byron:—

    The Aristotelian rule I had adopted soon brought me into difficulties, probably from want of skill in applying it.  It was in propagandist journalism that I had ventured, which I mention for the purpose of saying that it is not, as many suppose, a profitable profession.  It is excellent discipline, but it is not thought much of by your banker.  Its securities are never saleable on the Stock Exchange.  Nevertheless, the Press has its undying attraction.  It is the fame-maker.  Without it noble words, as well as noble deeds, would die.  Day by day there descend from the Press ideas in fertilising showers, falling on the parched and arid plains of life, which in due season become verdant and variegated.  Difficulties try men's souls, but true ideas expand them.  And they have done so.  Literature is a much brighter thing than it was when I first began to meddle or "muddle" in it, as Lord Salisbury would say.  Nothing was thought classical then that was not dull.  No definition of importance was found to be utterly unintelligible until a University man had explained it.  All is different now—let us hope.

    Instances of the progress of literary opinion are perhaps more instructive and better worth remembering.  In 1850, when George Henry Lewes and Thornton Hunt included my name in their published list of contributors to the Leader, it cost the proprietors, I had reason to know, £2,000.  It set the Rev. Dr. Jelf, of King's College, on fire, and caused an orthodox spasm of a serious kind in Charles Kingsley and Professor Maurice, as witness their letters of that day.

    One journal projected by me in 1850 is still issued—Public Opinion.  Mr. W. H. Ashurst asked me to devise a paper I thought the most needed.  As Peel had said, "England was governed by opinion," I suggested that this opinion should be collected.  I wrote the prospectus of the new journal, specifying that each article quoted should be prefixed by a few words, within brackets, setting forth what principles, party, or interest it represented—whether English or foreign.  Mr. Ashurst put the prospectus into the hands of Robert Buchanan, father of the late Robert Buchanan, and the earlier issues followed the plan I had defined.  The object was to collect intelligent and responsible opinion.

    In 1866 the Contemporary Review announced that it would "represent the best minds of the time on all contemporary questions, free from narrowness, bigotry, and sectarianism."  It professed "to represent those who are not afraid of modern thought, in its varied aspects and demands, and scorn to defend their faith by mere reticence, or by the artifices commonly acquiesced in."  This manifesto of 1866 far surpassed in liberality any profession then known in the evangelical world.  It was at the time a bold pronouncement.  When it is considered that Samuel Morley was the most influential of the supporters of the Contemporary, it shows that intellectual Nonconformity was abreast of the age—as Nonconformity never was before.

    In 1877 I was taken by Thomas Woolner, the sculptor, to dine at Mr. Alfred Tennyson's (Lord Tennyson later).  I believe my invitation was owing to Mrs. Tennyson's desire to make inquiries of me concerning the advantages of Co-operation in rural districts, in which, like the Countess of Warwick, she was interested.  The Poet Laureate gave me a glass of sack, the royal beverage of poets, of more exquisite flavour than I had tasted before.  I did not wonder that it was conducive to noble verse—where the faculty of it was present.

    Mr. Knowles, now Sir James, founder of the Nineteenth Century and After, was of the party, and the new review—then projected—being mentioned, it came to pass that my name was put down among possible contributors.  The Nineteenth Century proposed to go further, and include a still wider range of subjects, with free discussion on personal responsibility.  Its prospectus said "it would go on lines absolutely impartial and unsectarian."  The Prefatory Poem, written by Tennyson twenty-seven years ago, which may not be in the memory of many now, was this:—

    Tennyson, with all his genius, never quite emerged from the theologic caves of the conventicle.  The sea of pure reason he took to be "the sea of Death."  Doubt was a "sunless gulf."  He did not know that "Doubt" is a translucent valley, where the light of Truth first reveals the deformities of error—hidden by theological mists.  The line containing the words "wilder comrades" was understood to include me.  Out of the "One Hundred Contributors," whose names were published in the Athenæum (February 10, 1877), there were only six:—Professor Huxley, Professor Tyndall, Professor Clifford, George Henry Lewes, myself, and possibly Frederic Harrison, to whom the phrase could apply.  If the remaining ninety-four had any insurgency of opinion in them, it was not then apparent to the public, who are prone to prefer a vacuum to an insurgent idea.  New ideas of moment have always been on hand in the Nineteenth if not of the "wilder" kind.

    After issuing fifty volumes of the Nineteenth Century Review, the editor published a list of all his contributors, with the titles of the articles written by them, introduced by these brief but memorable words:—

    "More than a quarter of a century's experience has sufficiently tested the practical efficacy of the principle upon which the Nineteenth Century was founded, of free public discussion by writers invariably signing their own names.

    "The success which has attended and continues to attend the faithful adherence to this principle, proves that it is not only right but acceptable, and warrants the hope that it may extend its influence over periodical literature, until unsigned contributions become quite exceptional.

    "No man can make an anonymous speech with his tongue, and no brave man should desire to make one with his pen, but, having the courage of his opinions, should be ready to face personally all the consequences of all his utterances.  Anonymous letters are everywhere justly discredited in private life, and the tone of public life would be raised in proportion to the disappearance of their equivalent—anonymous articles—from public controversy."

    Than the foregoing, I know of no more admirable argument against anonymity in literature.  There is nothing more unfair in controversy than permiting writers, wearing a mask, to attack or make replies to those who give their names—being thereby enabled to be accusative or imputative without responsibility.  There is, of course another side to this question.  Persons of superior and relevant information, unwilling to appear personally, are thereby excluded from a hearing—which is so far a public loss.

    But this evil is small compared with the vividness and care which would be exercised if every writer felt that his reputation went with the work which bore his name.  Besides, how much slovenly thinking, which is slovenly expressed—vexing the public ear and depraving the taste and understanding of the reader—would never appear if the writer had to append his signature to his production?  Of course, there is good writing done anonymously, but power and originality, if present, are never rewarded, by fame, and no one knows who to thank for the light and pleasure nameless writers have given.  The example of the Nineteenth Century and After is a public advantage.

 
CHAPTER V.

GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE HENRY LEWES

MORE than acquaintanceship, I had affectionate regard for George Henry Lewes and George Eliot.  Lewes included me in the public list of writers and contributors to the Leader—the first recognition of the kind I received, and being accorded when I had only an outcast name, both in law and literature, I have never ceased to prize it.

    George Eliot's friendship, on other grounds I have had reason to value, and when I found a vacant place at the head of their graves which lie side by side, I bought it, that my ashes should repose there, should I die in England.

    On occasions which arose, I had vindicated both, as I knew well the personal circumstances of their lives.  When in America I found statements made concerning them which no editor of honour should have published without knowledge of the facts upon which they purported to be founded, nor should he have given publicity to dishonouring statements without the signature of a known and responsible person.  On the first opportunity I spoke with Lewes's eldest son, and asked authority to contradict them.  He thought the calumnies beneath contempt, that they sprang up in theological soil and that they would wither of themselves, if not fertilised by disturbance.  I know of no instance of purity and generosity greater than that displayed by George Eliot in her relation with Mr. Lewes.  Edgar Allan Poe was subject to graver defamation, widely believed for years, which was afterwards shown to be entirely devoid of truth.  George Eliot's personal reputation will hereafter be seen to be just and luminous.

   For myself, I never could see what conventional opinion had to do with a personal union founded in affection, by which nobody was wronged, nobody distressed, and in which protection was accorded and generous provision made for the present and future interest of every one concerned.  Conventional opinion, not even in its ethical aspects, could establish higher relations than existed in their case.  There are thousands of marriages tolerated conventionally and ecclesiastically approved, in every way less estimable and less honourable than the distinguished union, upon which society without justification affected to frown.

    Interest in social and political liberty was an abiding feature in George Eliot's mind.  When Garibaldi was at the Crystal Palace, she asked me to sit by her and elucidate incidents which arose.

    On the publication of my first volume of the History of Co-operation, I received the following letter from Mr. Lewes:—

THE ELMS, RICKMANSWORTH,
"Aug. 15, 1875,

"MY DEAR HOLYOAKE,—Mrs. Lewes wishes me to thank you for sending her your book, which she is reading aloud to me every evening, much to our pleasure and profit.  The light firm touch and quiet epigram would make the dullest subject readable; and this subject is not dull.  We only regret that you did not enter more fully into working details.  Perhaps they will come in the next volume.
                                                                  "Ever yours truly,
                                                                                         "G. H. LEWES."

    The second volume of the work mentioned supplied to her the details she wished.

    In 1877 I visited New Lanark and saw the stately rooms built by Robert Owen, of which I sent an account to the Times.  The most complete appliances of instruction known in Europe down to 1820 are all there, as in Mr. Owen's days.  A description of them may be read in the second volume of the "History of Co-operation" referred to.  When George Eliot saw the letter she said, "the thought of the Ruins of Education there described filled her with sadness."  I made an offer to buy the neglected and decaying relics, which was declined.  I wrote to Lord Playfair, whose influence might procure the purchase.  I endeavoured to induce the South Kensington Museum authorities to secure them for the benefit of educationists, but they had no funds to use for that purpose.

    Some women, not distinguished for personal beauty when young, become handsome and queenly later in life.  This was so with Harriet Martineau.  George Eliot did not come up to Herbert Spencer's conception of personal charm.  One day when she was living at Godstone, she drove to the station to meet Mr. Lewes.  He and I were travelling together at the time, and he caused the train to be delayed a few minutes that I might go down into the valley to meet his wife.  I had not seen George Eliot for some years, and was astonished at the stately grace she had acquired.

    One who knew how to state a principle describes the characteristic conviction of George Eliot, from which she never departed, and which had abiding interest for me.

    "She held as a solemn conviction—the result of a lifetime of observation—that in proportion as the thoughts of men and women are removed from the earth on which they live, are diverted from their own mutual relations and responsibilities, of which they alone know anything, to an invisible world, which can alone be apprehended by belief, they are led to neglect their duty to each other, to squander their strength in vain speculations, which can result in no profit to themselves or their fellow-creatures, which diminish their capacity for strenuous and worthy action during a span of life, brief, indeed, but whose consequences will extend to remote posterity." [8]

 
CHAPTER VI.

WHEN BIRMINGHAM WAS A TOWN

WHEN Birmingham was a town it had a national reputation for Liberalism.  At present I prefer to call myself a "townsman" rather than a "citizen."  The old pride of owning to being a Birmingham man is merged into the admission of being born in Warwickshire.  Some of the political scenes in its town days may be instructive to its present-day citizens.

    The famous Birmingham Political Union of 1832 was "hung up like a clean gun" on G. F. Muntz's suggestion and never taken down.  Many years later a new Union was projected.  Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was in the chair.  I was on the platform, and the only person present who was a member of the former Union.  I had no opportunity of speaking—nor indeed had anybody, save movers and seconders of motions.  There was nothing radical about the proceedings.  Nobody's opinion was asked.  No opportunity of discussion was given.  The meeting was a mere instrument for registering the business of the chair.  The impression that afternoon made upon me has never left me.  Nothing afterwards surprised me in the performances of the "quick-change artiste" of the Parliamentary music-hall.

    Mr. John Morley wrote an article in the Fortnightly on Mr. Chamberlain, which first gave him a position before the public.  Not even in Birmingham could any one see adequate justification for it.  But Mr. Morley proved right, and had discerned a capacity which had not then unfolded itself.

    About that time Mr. Chamberlain made some remark on Mr. Disraeli in the Birmingham Town Council, which did not amount to much.  Mr. Disraeli did the municipal speaker the honour to call him to account.  Had any one in like case called Mr. Disraeli to account he would have said in his airy and evasive way: "Every public speaker is liable to the misconstruction of unheeding and ill-hearing reporters, and he could not be expected to answer for them."  Mr. Chamberlain gave no sign of any such adroitness which was ready to his hand, but wrote what read like an abject apology.  He did not dare to say to Mr. Disraeli "What I have said I have said."