1854.

Resignation of commission in the militia.—Work from nature.—Spenser, the poet.—Hurstwood.—Loch Awe revisited.—A customer.—I determine to learn French well.—A tour in Wales.—Swimming.—Coolness on account of my religious beliefs.—My guardian.—Evil effects of religious bigotry.—Refuge in work.—My drawing-master.—Our excursion in Craven.

After returning to the country I went through another militia training, and soon afterwards resigned my commission. According to my present views of things I should probably not have done so, as it would be a satisfaction to me now to feel myself of some definite use to my country, even in the humble capacity of a militia officer; but in those days the militia was not taken seriously by the nation, so the officers did not take it seriously either, and, after a brief trial, a great many of them resigned. The recognized motive for going into the militia was a social motive, and as I never had any social ambition it mattered nothing to me that there were a few men of rank in the regiment. I had not any real companions in it, for I was much younger than most of my brother officers, and it is likely enough that the society of an inexperienced youth could offer no attraction to them. My love of my chosen studies was accompanied by a complete indifference to amusements, so that the cards and billiards after mess were not an attraction for me, and my ignorance of field sports has always made me feel rather a "muff" and a "duffer" in the society of country gentlemen.

The Colonel was always kind to me, and as I looked older than my age, he quite forgot how young I was and procured for me a captain's commission. As a matter of fact, I believe that a minor cannot hold a militia captaincy, because it requires a property qualification. Somehow, the Colonel was afterwards reminded of my age, and then thought he had made a mistake; however, my resignation rectified it. In fairness to myself it may be added that my military work was always done in a manner that gained the approval of our real master, the adjutant.

One cause that certainly influenced me in leaving the regiment was the necessity for appearing to be either a member of the Church of England or a member of the Church of Rome. As I belonged to neither, I felt it a hardship to be compelled to march to church every Sunday, and go through the forms of the service. It will, of course, seem absurd to any man of the world that such a trifle should have any weight whatever. Nobody endowed with what men of the world call "common-sense" ever hesitates about going through forms and ceremonies, when he can maintain or increase his worldly position by doing so. As for me, I make no claim to superior virtue, but cannot help feeling an invincible repugnance to these shams. My own line had been chosen when I refused to go to Oxford and sign the Thirty-nine Articles; the forced conformity in the militia was a deflection of the compass, but it has pointed straight ever since, and may it point straight to the end!

When free again, I set to work from nature, applying what Pettitt had taught me. I drew and painted studies of rocks with great fidelity, and as rocks are hard things, and my work was as hard as possible, there can be no doubt that so far it was like nature. Pettitt had strengthened the positive and scientific tendency that there is in me, so that I was quite ardent in the pursuit of the rigid and measurable truths, neither knowing nor caring anything about those more subtle and less manifest truths that the cultivated artist loves. However, I painted away diligently enough from nature, giving two long sittings each day, and writing only in the evenings. My readings at this time were chiefly in Shakespeare and Spenser.

I may have been attracted to Spenser partly by the belief, greatly encouraged by the local antiquaries, that the famous Elizabethan poet lived for some time with relations of his at Hurstwood,—a hamlet by the side of the same stream that passes by Hollins and a mile or two above it. The old houses at Hurstwood remained as they were in Spenser's time, and the particular one is known where his reputed family lived. [Footnote: The presumptive evidence in favor of the theory that Spenser stayed at Hurstwood is very strong, and of various kinds. The reader who takes any interest in the subject is referred to the "Transactions of the Burnley Literary and Scientific Club," vol. iv., 1886, where he will find a wood-cut of the house that once belonged to the Spensers of Hurstwood.] As you ascend the stream beyond Hurstwood, you approach the open moors, which were always a delight to me. The love of the stream and the hills beyond frequently led me to pass the little hamlet where Spenser is said to have lived, and in this way he seemed to belong to our own landscape, since he must have wandered by the same river, and looked upon the same hills. So as a boy whose daily wanderings were by the Avon might naturally think of Shakespeare more frequently than another, my thoughts turned often to the author of the "Faerie Queene." I never read that poem steadily and fairly through, but I strayed about in it, which is the right way of reading it.

My own pursuit of poetry at that time led me to think of a poem founded on the legends of Loch Awe. To penetrate my mind more completely with the genius of the place, I went there in the summer of 1854, and worked at the poem, besides drawing some illustrations, of which a few were afterwards engraved. Notwithstanding a great liking for Loch Awe, my stay there was not particularly agreeable. I lived, of course, at the inns, which were not very good, and having no companion, not even a servant, I felt rather dull and lonely, especially on the wet days. A well-known London banker was staying at the inn of Cladich at the same time with me, so we became acquainted, and he wished to purchase one of my studies; but as I intended to keep them all, I declined. This was very foolish, as it would have been easy to do another of the same subject for myself, and the mere fact of selling would have been a practical encouragement, especially as that purchase would probably have been followed by others. The very smallest beginnings are of importance. It is much for a young artist to get a few pounds fairly offered by a customer who knows nothing about him except his work, and is actuated by no motives of friendship.

Another visitor at the same inn exercised upon me an influence of a very different kind. He had a young daughter with him, and to keep the girl in practice he constantly spoke French to her. I had studied the language more than most English boys do, and yet I found myself totally unable to follow those French conversations. This plagued me with an irritating sense of ignorance, so I looked back on my education generally, and found it unsatisfactory. Being conscious that my classical attainments were not very valuable, I determined to acquire some substantial knowledge of modern languages, and to begin by learning French over again, so as to write and speak it easily. This resolution remained in my mind as irrevocably settled, and was afterwards completely carried out.

As I shall have a good deal to say about Loch Awe in future pages of this book, I omit all description of it here. Many of the days spent there in 1854 were rainy, and I sat alone writing my poem in a little bedroom on the ground-floor of the inn at Cladich. Of all literary work versification is the most absorbing, and if it is good for nothing else, it has at least the merit of getting one well through a rainy day.

On my return from Scotland, I accompanied my guardian and her sister on a tour in Wales. We revisited Rhyl and some other places that I had seen with my father, including Caernarvon. This tour was of no importance in itself; but as from Scotland I had brought the resolution that made me seriously study French, so from Caernarvon I brought a resolution to master the art of swimming. Being in the water one morning, I suddenly found that I could swim after a fashion, and this led to more serious efforts. Our stream at home was delightful for mere bathing; but the rocks were an impediment to active exercise. I afterwards became an accomplished swimmer, and could do various tricks in the water, such as reading aloud from a book held in both hands, or swimming in clothes and heavy boots, with one hand out of the water carrying a paddle and drawing a canoe after me. I have often carried one of my little boys on my shoulders; but they are now better swimmers than myself, and the eldest has saved several men from drowning. It is an immense comfort, if nothing else, to be perfectly at home in the water, and it has increased my pleasure in boating a hundred-fold.

There is nothing further of importance to be noted for the year 1854, except that I began to perceive a certain coolness, or what the French call Èloignement, in our friends, which I attributed to my religious opinions. I never obtruded my opinions on any one, but did not conceal them beneath the usual conventional observances, so that our neighbors became aware that I did not think in a strictly orthodox manner, though they were in fact completely ignorant of the true nature of my beliefs. I remember one interesting test of my changed position in society. There was a certain great country house where I had been on the most intimate terms from childhood, where the boys called me by my Christian name, as I called them by theirs, and where my guardian and I were from time to time invited to dine, and sometimes to spend a day or two. When our militia regiment was in training, the owner of this house invited the officers to a grand dinner, and I, an old intimate friend, was omitted. It was impossible that this omission could have been accidental, and it was impossible not to perceive it. I afterwards learned that my religious views were regarded with disapproval in that house, and there, of course, the matter rested. At the same time, or soon afterwards, I noticed that invitations from certain other houses also came to an end, a matter of little consequence to me personally; but I thought that it might indirectly be injurious to my guardian and her sister, and began to feel that I had become a sort of social disgrace and impediment for them.

It was probably about this time that my guardian bought for me some religious books, in which heterodox opinions were represented as being invariably the result of wickedness. I said it was a pity that religious writers could not learn to be more just, as heterodoxy might be due to simple intellectual differences. My guardian answered that she could perceive no injustice whatever in the statement that I complained of. This was infinitely painful to me, as coming from the person I most loved and esteemed in all the world. Another incident embittered my existence for some time. I had an intimate friend in Burnley, and my guardian said that she regretted this intimacy, not for any harm that my friend was likely to do me, but because with my "lamentable opinions" I might corrupt his mind. My answer to attacks of this kind has always been simple silence; when they came from other people I treated them with unfeigned indifference; but when they came from that one dear person, whose affection I valued more than all honors and all fame, they cut me to the quick, and then I knew by cruel experience what a dreadful evil religious bigotry is. For what had I ever said or done to deserve censure? I had as good a right to my opinions as other people had to theirs, yet I kept them within my own breast, and avoided even the shadow of offence. My only crime was the negative one of nonconformity. Even in my latter years, the same old spirit of intolerance pursues me. The nearest relation I have left in England said to my wife that she hoped my books had not an extensive sale, so that their evil influence might be as narrowly restricted as possible. As for her, she would not even look into them. [Footnote: In writing this autobiography I often suddenly remember some forgotten incident of past times. Here is one that has just occurred to me. When walking out in 1853, I met a boy who shouted after me, "You're the fellow that thinks we are all like rats!" He had probably heard my opinions discussed in his family circle—how justly and how intelligently his exclamation shows.]

My refuge in those days was that best of all refuges—occupation. I was constantly at work on my different pursuits, and led a very healthy life at Hollins. The greatest objection to it was an evil that I have had to put up with in several different places, and that is intellectual isolation, especially on the side of art. I had nobody to speak to on that subject, except my old drawing-master, Mr. Henry Palmer. He had inevitably fallen into the usual routine of futile teaching, which is the fault of an uneducated public opinion, and of which the drawing-masters themselves are the first victims, so I did not take lessons from him; but he felt a warm and earnest interest in the fine arts, and we talked about old masters and modern masters for hours together in my study at Hollins, and in our walks. We once made a delightful sketching excursion together into the district of Craven, and I remember that at Bolton Abbey we met with a wonderful German who could sit in the presence of nature and coolly make trees according to a mechanical recipe. He might just as well have drawn the scenery of the Wharfe in the heart of Berlin.