Chapter XVII
In Which the Story Pauses a Little
"THIS Rector of Broxton is little better than a pagan!" I hear one of myreaders exclaim. "How much more edifying it would have been if you hadmade him give Arthur some truly spiritual advice! You might have putinto his mouth the most beautiful things--quite as good as reading asermon."
Certainly I could, if I held it the highest vocation of the novelistto represent things as they never have been and never will be. Then,of course, I might refashion life and character entirely after my ownliking; I might select the most unexceptionable type of clergyman andput my own admirable opinions into his mouth on all occasions. But ithappens, on the contrary, that my strongest effort is to avoid any sucharbitrary picture, and to give a faithful account of men and thingsas they have mirrored themselves in my mind. The mirror is doubtlessdefective, the outlines will sometimes be disturbed, the reflectionfaint or confused; but I feel as much bound to tell you as preciselyas I can what that reflection is, as if I were in the witness-box,narrating my experience on oath.
Sixty years ago--it is a long time, so no wonder things havechanged--all clergymen were not zealous; indeed, there is reason tobelieve that the number of zealous clergymen was small, and it isprobable that if one among the small minority had owned the livingsof Broxton and Hayslope in the year 1799, you would have liked him nobetter than you like Mr. Irwine. Ten to one, you would have thought hima tasteless, indiscreet, methodistical man. It is so very rarely thatfacts hit that nice medium required by our own enlightened opinions andrefined taste! Perhaps you will say, "Do improve the facts a little,then; make them more accordant with those correct views which it is ourprivilege to possess. The world is not just what we like; do touch itup with a tasteful pencil, and make believe it is not quite such a mixedentangled affair. Let all people who hold unexceptionable opinions actunexceptionably. Let your most faulty characters always be on the wrongside, and your virtuous ones on the right. Then we shall see at a glancewhom we are to condemn and whom we are to approve. Then we shall be ableto admire, without the slightest disturbance of our prepossessions: weshall hate and despise with that true ruminant relish which belongs toundoubting confidence."
But, my good friend, what will you do then with your fellow-parishionerwho opposes your husband in the vestry? With your newly appointed vicar,whose style of preaching you find painfully below that of his regrettedpredecessor? With the honest servant who worries your soul with her onefailing? With your neighbour, Mrs. Green, who was really kind to youin your last illness, but has said several ill-natured things about yousince your convalescence? Nay, with your excellent husband himself, whohas other irritating habits besides that of not wiping his shoes? Thesefellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are: you can neitherstraighten their noses, nor brighten their wit, nor rectify theirdispositions; and it is these people--amongst whom your life ispassed--that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love: it isthese more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people whose movements ofgoodness you should be able to admire--for whom you should cherish allpossible hopes, all possible patience. And I would not, even if I hadthe choice, be the clever novelist who could create a world so muchbetter than this, in which we get up in the morning to do our dailywork, that you would be likely to turn a harder, colder eye on thedusty streets and the common green fields--on the real breathing menand women, who can be chilled by your indifference or injured by yourprejudice; who can be cheered and helped onward by your fellow-feeling,your forbearance, your outspoken, brave justice.
So I am content to tell my simple story, without trying to make thingsseem better than they were; dreading nothing, indeed, but falsity,which, in spite of one's best efforts, there is reason to dread.Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. The pencil is conscious of adelightful facility in drawing a griffin--the longer the claws, andthe larger the wings, the better; but that marvellous facility whichwe mistook for genius is apt to forsake us when we want to draw a realunexaggerated lion. Examine your words well, and you will find that evenwhen you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say theexact truth, even about your own immediate feelings--much harder than tosay something fine about them which is NOT the exact truth.
It is for this rare, precious quality of truthfulness that I delight inmany Dutch paintings, which lofty-minded people despise. I find a sourceof delicious sympathy in these faithful pictures of a monotonoushomely existence, which has been the fate of so many more among myfellow-mortals than a life of pomp or of absolute indigence, of tragicsuffering or of world-stirring actions. I turn, without shrinking, fromcloud-borne angels, from prophets, sibyls, and heroic warriors, to anold woman bending over her flower-pot, or eating her solitary dinner,while the noonday light, softened perhaps by a screen of leaves, fallson her mob-cap, and just touches the rim of her spinning-wheel, andher stone jug, and all those cheap common things which are the preciousnecessaries of life to her--or I turn to that village wedding, keptbetween four brown walls, where an awkward bridegroom opens the dancewith a high-shouldered, broad-faced bride, while elderly and middle-agedfriends look on, with very irregular noses and lips, and probablywith quart-pots in their hands, but with an expression of unmistakablecontentment and goodwill. "Foh!" says my idealistic friend, "what vulgardetails! What good is there in taking all these pains to give an exactlikeness of old women and clowns? What a low phase of life! What clumsy,ugly people!"
But bless us, things may be lovable that are not altogether handsome, Ihope? I am not at all sure that the majority of the human race havenot been ugly, and even among those "lords of their kind," the British,squat figures, ill-shapen nostrils, and dingy complexions are notstartling exceptions. Yet there is a great deal of family love amongstus. I have a friend or two whose class of features is such that theApollo curl on the summit of their brows would be decidedly trying; yetto my certain knowledge tender hearts have beaten for them, and theirminiatures--flattering, but still not lovely--are kissed in secret bymotherly lips. I have seen many an excellent matron, who could havenever in her best days have been handsome, and yet she had a packet ofyellow love-letters in a private drawer, and sweet children showeredkisses on her sallow cheeks. And I believe there have been plenty ofyoung heroes, of middle stature and feeble beards, who have felt quitesure they could never love anything more insignificant than a Diana, andyet have found themselves in middle life happily settled with a wife whowaddles. Yes! Thank God; human feeling is like the mighty rivers thatbless the earth: it does not wait for beauty--it flows with resistlessforce and brings beauty with it.
All honour and reverence to the divine beauty of form! Let us cultivateit to the utmost in men, women, and children--in our gardens and in ourhouses. But let us love that other beauty too, which lies in no secretof proportion, but in the secret of deep human sympathy. Paint us anangel, if you can, with a floating violet robe, and a face paled by thecelestial light; paint us yet oftener a Madonna, turning her mild faceupward and opening her arms to welcome the divine glory; but do notimpose on us any aesthetic rules which shall banish from the region ofArt those old women scraping carrots with their work-worn hands, thoseheavy clowns taking holiday in a dingy pot-house, those rounded backsand stupid weather-beaten faces that have bent over the spade and donethe rough work of the world--those homes with their tin pans, theirbrown pitchers, their rough curs, and their clusters of onions. Inthis world there are so many of these common coarse people, who haveno picturesque sentimental wretchedness! It is so needful we shouldremember their existence, else we may happen to leave them quite out ofour religion and philosophy and frame lofty theories which only fita world of extremes. Therefore, let Art always remind us of them;therefore let us always have men ready to give the loving pains of alife to the faithful representing of commonplace things--men who seebeauty in these commonplace things, and delight in showing how kindlythe light of heaven falls on them. There are few prophets in the world;few sublimely beautiful women; few heroes. I ca
n't afford to give allmy love and reverence to such rarities: I want a great deal of thosefeelings for my every-day fellow-men, especially for the few in theforeground of the great multitude, whose faces I know, whose hands Itouch, for whom I have to make way with kindly courtesy. Neither arepicturesque lazzaroni or romantic criminals half so frequent as yourcommon labourer, who gets his own bread and eats it vulgarly butcreditably with his own pocket-knife. It is more needful that I shouldhave a fibre of sympathy connecting me with that vulgar citizen whoweighs out my sugar in a vilely assorted cravat and waistcoat, than withthe handsomest rascal in red scarf and green feathers--more needful thatmy heart should swell with loving admiration at some trait of gentlegoodness in the faulty people who sit at the same hearth with me, or inthe clergyman of my own parish, who is perhaps rather too corpulent andin other respects is not an Oberlin or a Tillotson, than at the deedsof heroes whom I shall never know except by hearsay, or at the sublimestabstract of all clerical graces that was ever conceived by an ablenovelist.
And so I come back to Mr. Irwine, with whom I desire you to be inperfect charity, far as he may be from satisfying your demands on theclerical character. Perhaps you think he was not--as he ought to havebeen--a living demonstration of the benefits attached to a nationalchurch? But I am not sure of that; at least I know that the peoplein Broxton and Hayslope would have been very sorry to part with theirclergyman, and that most faces brightened at his approach; and until itcan be proved that hatred is a better thing for the soul than love,I must believe that Mr. Irwine's influence in his parish was a morewholesome one than that of the zealous Mr. Ryde, who came there twentyyears afterwards, when Mr. Irwine had been gathered to his fathers. Itis true, Mr. Ryde insisted strongly on the doctrines of the Reformation,visited his flock a great deal in their own homes, and was severein rebuking the aberrations of the flesh--put a stop, indeed, to theChristmas rounds of the church singers, as promoting drunkenness andtoo light a handling of sacred things. But I gathered from Adam Bede, towhom I talked of these matters in his old age, that few clergymen couldbe less successful in winning the hearts of their parishioners than Mr.Ryde. They learned a great many notions about doctrine from him, sothat almost every church-goer under fifty began to distinguish as wellbetween the genuine gospel and what did not come precisely up to thatstandard, as if he had been born and bred a Dissenter; and for some timeafter his arrival there seemed to be quite a religious movement in thatquiet rural district. "But," said Adam, "I've seen pretty clear, eversince I was a young un, as religion's something else besides notions. Itisn't notions sets people doing the right thing--it's feelings. It's thesame with the notions in religion as it is with math'matics--a man maybe able to work problems straight off in's head as he sits by the fireand smokes his pipe, but if he has to make a machine or a building, hemust have a will and a resolution and love something else better thanhis own ease. Somehow, the congregation began to fall off, and peoplebegan to speak light o' Mr. Ryde. I believe he meant right at bottom;but, you see, he was sourish-tempered, and was for beating down priceswith the people as worked for him; and his preaching wouldn't go downwell with that sauce. And he wanted to be like my lord judge i' theparish, punishing folks for doing wrong; and he scolded 'em fromthe pulpit as if he'd been a Ranter, and yet he couldn't abide theDissenters, and was a deal more set against 'em than Mr. Irwine was. Andthen he didn't keep within his income, for he seemed to think at firstgo-off that six hundred a-year was to make him as big a man as Mr.Donnithorne. That's a sore mischief I've often seen with the poorcurates jumping into a bit of a living all of a sudden. Mr. Ryde was adeal thought on at a distance, I believe, and he wrote books, but as formath'matics and the natur o' things, he was as ignorant as a woman. Hewas very knowing about doctrines, and used to call 'em the bulwarks ofthe Reformation but I've always mistrusted that sort o' learning asleaves folks foolish and unreasonable about business. Now Mester Irwinewas as different as could be: as quick!--he understood what you meant ina minute, and he knew all about building, and could see when you'd madea good job. And he behaved as much like a gentleman to the farmers, andth' old women, and the labourers, as he did to the gentry. You never sawHIM interfering and scolding, and trying to play th' emperor. Ah, he wasa fine man as ever you set eyes on and so kind to's mother and sisters.That poor sickly Miss Anne--he seemed to think more of her than ofanybody else in the world. There wasn't a soul in the parish had a wordto say against him; and his servants stayed with him till they were soold and pottering, he had to hire other folks to do their work."
"Well," I said, "that was an excellent way of preaching in the weekdays;but I daresay, if your old friend Mr. Irwine were to come to life again,and get into the pulpit next Sunday, you would be rather ashamed that hedidn't preach better after all your praise of him."
"Nay, nay," said Adam, broadening his chest and throwing himself back inhis chair, as if he were ready to meet all inferences, "nobody has everheard me say Mr. Irwine was much of a preacher. He didn't go into deepsperitial experience; and I know there s a deal in a man's inward lifeas you can't measure by the square, and say, 'Do this and that 'llfollow,' and, 'Do that and this 'll follow.' There's things go on in thesoul, and times when feelings come into you like a rushing mighty wind,as the Scripture says, and part your life in two a'most, so you lookback on yourself as if you was somebody else. Those are things as youcan't bottle up in a 'do this' and 'do that'; and I'll go so far withthe strongest Methodist ever you'll find. That shows me there's deepsperitial things in religion. You can't make much out wi' talking aboutit, but you feel it. Mr. Irwine didn't go into those things--he preachedshort moral sermons, and that was all. But then he acted pretty muchup to what he said; he didn't set up for being so different from otherfolks one day, and then be as like 'em as two peas the next. And hemade folks love him and respect him, and that was better nor stirringup their gall wi' being overbusy. Mrs. Poyser used to say--you know shewould have her word about everything--she said, Mr. Irwine was like agood meal o' victual, you were the better for him without thinking onit, and Mr. Ryde was like a dose o' physic, he gripped you and worretedyou, and after all he left you much the same."
"But didn't Mr. Ryde preach a great deal more about that spiritual partof religion that you talk of, Adam? Couldn't you get more out of hissermons than out of Mr. Irwine's?"
"Eh, I knowna. He preached a deal about doctrines. But I've seen prettyclear, ever since I was a young un, as religion's something else besidesdoctrines and notions. I look at it as if the doctrines was like findingnames for your feelings, so as you can talk of 'em when you've neverknown 'em, just as a man may talk o' tools when he knows their names,though he's never so much as seen 'em, still less handled 'em. I'veheard a deal o' doctrine i' my time, for I used to go after theDissenting preachers along wi' Seth, when I was a lad o' seventeen, andgot puzzling myself a deal about th' Arminians and the Calvinists. TheWesleyans, you know, are strong Arminians; and Seth, who could neverabide anything harsh and was always for hoping the best, held fast bythe Wesleyans from the very first; but I thought I could pick a hole ortwo in their notions, and I got disputing wi' one o' the class leadersdown at Treddles'on, and harassed him so, first o' this side and theno' that, till at last he said, 'Young man, it's the devil making use o'your pride and conceit as a weapon to war against the simplicity o'the truth.' I couldn't help laughing then, but as I was going home, Ithought the man wasn't far wrong. I began to see as all this weighingand sifting what this text means and that text means, and whether folksare saved all by God's grace, or whether there goes an ounce o' theirown will to't, was no part o' real religion at all. You may talk o'these things for hours on end, and you'll only be all the more coxy andconceited for't. So I took to going nowhere but to church, and hearingnobody but Mr. Irwine, for he said nothing but what was good and whatyou'd be the wiser for remembering. And I found it better for my soulto be humble before the mysteries o' God's dealings, and not be makinga clatter about what I could never understand. And they're poor foolishq
uestions after all; for what have we got either inside or outside of usbut what comes from God? If we've got a resolution to do right, He gaveit us, I reckon, first or last; but I see plain enough we shall never doit without a resolution, and that's enough for me."
Adam, you perceive, was a warm admirer, perhaps a partial judge, of Mr.Irwine, as, happily, some of us still are of the people we have knownfamiliarly. Doubtless it will be despised as a weakness by that loftyorder of minds who pant after the ideal, and are oppressed by a generalsense that their emotions are of too exquisite a character to find fitobjects among their everyday fellowmen. I have often been favoured withthe confidence of these select natures, and find them to concur inthe experience that great men are overestimated and small men areinsupportable; that if you would love a woman without ever looking backon your love as a folly, she must die while you are courting her; and ifyou would maintain the slightest belief in human heroism, you must nevermake a pilgrimage to see the hero. I confess I have often meanly shrunkfrom confessing to these accomplished and acute gentlemen what my ownexperience has been. I am afraid I have often smiled with hypocriticalassent, and gratified them with an epigram on the fleeting nature of ourillusions, which any one moderately acquainted with French literaturecan command at a moment's notice. Human converse, I think some wiseman has remarked, is not rigidly sincere. But I herewith discharge myconscience, and declare that I have had quite enthusiastic movements ofadmiration towards old gentlemen who spoke the worst English, who wereoccasionally fretful in their temper, and who had never moved in ahigher sphere of influence than that of parish overseer; and thatthe way in which I have come to the conclusion that human nature islovable--the way I have learnt something of its deep pathos, its sublimemysteries--has been by living a great deal among people more or lesscommonplace and vulgar, of whom you would perhaps hear nothing verysurprising if you were to inquire about them in the neighbourhoods wherethey dwelt. Ten to one most of the small shopkeepers in their vicinitysaw nothing at all in them. For I have observed this remarkablecoincidence, that the select natures who pant after the ideal, andfind nothing in pantaloons or petticoats great enough to command theirreverence and love, are curiously in unison with the narrowest andpettiest. For example, I have often heard Mr. Gedge, the landlord ofthe Royal Oak, who used to turn a bloodshot eye on his neighbours inthe village of Shepperton, sum up his opinion of the people in his ownparish--and they were all the people he knew--in these emphatic words:"Aye, sir, I've said it often, and I'll say it again, they're a poor loti' this parish--a poor lot, sir, big and little." I think he had adim idea that if he could migrate to a distant parish, he might findneighbours worthy of him; and indeed he did subsequently transferhimself to the Saracen's Head, which was doing a thriving business inthe back street of a neighbouring market-town. But, oddly enough, he hasfound the people up that back street of precisely the same stamp as theinhabitants of Shepperton--"a poor lot, sir, big and little, and themas comes for a go o' gin are no better than them as comes for a pint o'twopenny--a poor lot."