Caroline Fox's Memories

THE writing of diaries comes by nature to the Quaker. The habit of self-communion gives a calm outlook upon the world, — there is no preparation for looking out better than looking in; the constant reference to the higher life refines the judgment, — to look up enables one to look down; and the order and method which rule the mind favor the diary mode of expression. The Quaker in literature has shone with special mellowness of light in these epitomes of society. Indeed, it is only the person who stands a little on one side of the rushing tide of life who keeps a diary at all. The daily memoranda of most men and women of action have a Jinglelike vivacity, and it is only those who have leisure of mind who can find time to-day to set down so much of yesterday as will be worth reading to-morrow. We wonder sometimes what diaries may be growing silently in our own society, storing material for a picture of life which shall please those who come after us ; and we are easily persuaded that the best glimpses of our day will be from the records of cultivated women, having access to good society, staying at home, indeed, and letting the best world in at the door, taking pleasure in preserving the ways and words of men and women who will surely be welcome to the readers of books.

For the women, whether Quakers or not in creed, have the Quaker gifts when the world will let them be their best selves. They keep alive the flickering flame of letter-writing, and make those artless confessions which have the charm and not the terror of truth. It is not the professional writers whom we have in view, but those who are eloquent to one person, and authors in the frank privacy of their journals ; who use their pen with no more thought of print than they use the garden-rake with the thought of being flower-girls. Within the shelter of a home such women have the courage of their calm convictions, and they draw the best thought to them as steadily as if they could assure the givers an unconditional immortality.

Nor would one’s fame he entrusted to safer keeping. Miss Caroline Fox, a young member of an old Quaker family of Cornwall, in England, kept a diary and wrote letters from 1835 to 1871, and in the book ¹ which has been made from her writing one will not only discover fresh views of familiar faces, but once at least, in a very notable instance, a positively new portrait, which is a revelation of character novel to many persons who thought they knew the man well. Miss Fox’s father, Robert Were Fox, was held in high esteem among scientific men for his investigations and practical services in the field of magnetism and electricity, and he and his brothers, occupying delightful homes near Falmouth, made their houses the resort of the best people; when Caroline Fox went to London, or traveled, she seemed to carry with her the hospitality of her father’s house, for she was always, by a principle of selection easily understood, in the best society. She was only sixteen years old when she began her diary, and in the earlier pages there are some unformed stories and fragmentary reports of conversations ; but her hand soon becomes steady, and it is not long before we lay criticism aside, and enter heartily into the delightful life to which she admits us.

The portrait which will impress readerf most vividly is that of John Stuart Mill, and Miss Fox’s lines will surely have a singular value in reconstructing the popular judgment of Mill. Rather, they will justify the suspicion of many minds that the Mill whom the world thinks it knows is not wholly set forth in the later portraits. Henry Mill, a younger brother, lay dying of consumption at Falmouth, and the Foxes showed him kindness. Then John Mill came upon the scene, and this is Miss Fox’s first sketch of him : “ March 16 [1840]. His eldest brother, John, is now come, and Clara brought him to see us this morning. He is a very uncommon-looking person, — such acuteness and sensibility marked in his exquisitely chiseled countenance, more resembling a portrait of Lavater than any other that I remember. His voice is refinement itself, and his mode of expressing himself tallies with voice and countenance. He squeezed papa’s and. mamma’s hands without speaking, and afterwards warmly thanked them for kindnesses received.” The next day she saw him again, and had a long walk with him and Sterling. Mill talked much, and the Quaker girl’s report of what he said is clear, though concise : “He was full of interesting talk. A ship in full sail he declared the only work of man that under all circumstances harmonizes with nature, the reason being that it is adapted purely to natural requirements. Of the infinite ideas the ancients had of the world we do inhabit, and how they are limited and exactly defined by modern discoveries ; however, it still remains for you to look above, and there is infinity. The whole material universe small compared to the guileless heart of a little child, because it can contain it all, and much more. . . . ‘ No one,’ he said, with deep feeling, ‘should attempt anything intended to benefit his age without at first making a stern resolution to take up his cross and to bear it. If he does not begin by counting the cost, all his schemes must end in disappointment; either he will sink under it, as Chatterton, or yield to the counter-current, like Erasmus, or pass his life in disappointment and vexation, as Luther did.’ This was evidently a process through which he [Mill] had passed, as is sufficiently attested by his careworn and anxious, though most beautiful and refined countenance.”

Mill drew up for Miss Fox a pretty calendar of odors, beginning with the laurel in March, and ending with the lime in July. “ Speaking of motives,” he said, “it is not well for young people to inquire too much into them, but rather let them judge of actions, lest, seeing the wonderful mixture of high and low, they should be discouraged. There is, besides, an egotism in self-depreciation ; the only certain mode of overcoming this and all other egotisms is to implore the grace of God. . . . Our characters alter exceedingly in going through life, and this alteration enlarges our capacity of sympathizing with others ; remembering what struggles we have encountered, and therefore appreciating their difficulties in passing through the same ordeal. When the change in character has been an extraordinary one, men are often observed to maintain a sort of personal hatred to their former errors and weaknesses, and then, forgetting their struggles, they shut themselves out of the pale of sympathy.” Miss Fox met Mill after he left Falmouth, and exchanged letters with him. In one of them he recounted his three successes in life thus far : that he had saved Lord Durham’s political reputation ; that he had greatly accelerated the success of Carlyle’s French Revolution by forestalling criticism ; and that he had dinned into people’s ears the greatness of Guizot as a thinker and writer, until they were beginning to read him. One conversation after another is reported, and we hear what his friends say of him, as Carlyle’s “ Ah, poor fellow! he has had to get himself out of Benthamism ; and all the emotions and sufferings he has endured have helped him to thoughts that never entered Bentham’s head. However, he is still too fond of demonstrating everything. If John Mill were to get up to heaven, he would hardly he content till he had made out how it all was. For my part, I don’t much trouble myself about the machinery of the place ; whether there is an operative set of angels, or an industrial class. I’m willing to leave all that.” Finally, after an apparent interruption of intercourse, there is a sad letter from Miss Fox to a friend, in which she says, “I am reading that terrible book of John Mill’s on Liberty, so clear and calm and cold, He lays it on one as a tremendous duty to get one’s self well contradicted, and admit always a devil’s advocate into the presence of your dearest, most sacred truths, as they are apt to grow windy and worthless without such tests, if indeed they can stand the shock of argument at all. He looks you through like a basilisk, relentless as fate. We knew him well at one time, and owe him very much. I fear his remorseless logic has led him far since then. This book is dedicated to his wife’s memory in a few most touching words. He is in many senses isolated, and must sometimes shiver with the cold.”

The exquisite charity which underlies all of Miss Fox’s criticisms in her Memories will withdraw the book, for many minds, from the class of self-satisfied autobiographies. Miss Fox held her religious faith strongly and simply; she won her confidence step by step, as the book indicates, and with increasing trust came wider sympathy and more affectionate care for people of diverse opinions. She had a warm admiration for Maurice, the Bunsens, the Hares, and men of that way; she rejoiced also in Carlyle, and was strong in her admiration for Sterling ; yet one of the last passages in the book is a touching account of her brother Barclay’s death, told in language which savors of the purest Evangelicalism. It is just after this that she wrote to Clara Mill: “And then thy poor brother [John], with his failing health and depressed spirits, walking up Etna ! Think of my boldness; I actually wrote to him! It came over me so strongly one morning that Barclay would like him to be told how mercifully he had been dealt with, and how true his God and Saviour had been to all his promises, that I took courage, and pen, and wrote a long history. Barclay had been the last of our family who had seen him, and he said he was very affectionate, but looked so grave, never smiling once ; and he told him that he was about to winter in the South, by Sir James Clark’s order. I hope I have not done wrong or foolishly, but I do feel it rather a solemn trust to have such a story to tell of death robbed of its sting and the grave of its victory. It makes one long to join worthily in the eternal song of ' Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ ! ’ ”

The notices of Sterling are abundant and full of interest. Sterling made his home for a while at Falmouth, urged chiefly by his liking for the Fox family, and Miss Fox’s journal shows the intimacy in which they lived with this rare man. It is pleasant to get these views of Sterling and Carlyle, after having already caught a glimpse of the Foxes as seen by them. “ Bright, cheery young creatures,” Carlyle calls Misses Fox, and elsewhere in his Life of Sterling, quotes Sterling’s own account of them : “ Most worthy, respectable, and highly cultivated people, with a great deal of money among them, who make the place pleasant to me. They are connected with all the large Quaker circle, the Gurneys, Frys, etc., and also with Buxton, the abolitionist. It is droll to hear them talking of all the common topics of science, literature, and life, and in the midst of it, ‘ Does thou know Wordsworth ? ’ or, ‘ Did thou see the Coronation ? ’ or, ' Will thou take some refreshment ? ’ They are very kind and pleasant people to know.”

The skill with which this “ bright, cheery young creature ” drew Wordsworth out appears in the record of her conversation with him, and the honesty of her report is delightfully tempered by the gracious charity of her nature. We hardly know where to find a better vignette of the poet than in the few lines which Miss Fox writes before reporting what he said: “ He is a man of middle height, and not of very striking appearance ; the lower part of the face retreating a little; his eye of a somewhat French diplomatic character, with heavy eyelids, and none of the flashing which one connects with poetic genius. When speaking earnestly, his manner and voice become extremely energetic ; and the peculiar emphasis and even accent he throws into some of his words add considerably to their force, He evidently loves the monologue style of conversation, but shows great candor in giving due consideration to any remarks which others may make. His manner is simple; his general appearance that of the abstract thinker, whom his subject gradually warms into poetry.” And then they went on from the beauty of Rydal to Lamb’s ironical praise of London, and Hartley Coleridge, and Shelley, and S. T. Coleridge; they fell into discourse about the divine permission of evil, and shallow utility and faith. “ We took a truly affectionate leave,” the enthusiastic Quaker girl ends ; “ he held my hand in both of his for some time, which I consider a marked fact in my existence ! ”

Miss Fox was indeed a graceful heroworshiper. Even autograph-hunting becomes in her hands a polite and delicate occupation, and when a lion comes in her path she takes his paw so frankly and winningly that the beast roars with all the good nature in the world. It is amusing to see the pretty discretion with which, having Tennyson at her house, she leads him along into the deeps of his own poetry ; but here is a bit, taken from her report of what Henry Hallam told her, which is a real addition to our knowledge of the poet: “ Henry Hallam knows Tennyson intimately, who speaks with rapture of some of the Cornish scenery. At one little place, Looe, where he arrived in the evening, he cried, ‘Where is the sea? Show me the sea! ’ So after the sea he went stumbling in the dark, and fell down, and hurt his leg so much that he had to be nursed for six weeks by a surgeon there, who introduced some of his friends to him ; and thus he got into a class of society totally new to him ; and when he left, they gave him a series of introductions, so that instead of going to hotels he was passed on from town to town, and abode with little grocers and shopkeepers along his line of travel. He says that he cannot have better got a true general impression of the class, and thinks the Cornish very superior to the generality. They all knew about Tennyson, and had heard his poems, and one miner hid behind a wall that he might see him. Tennyson hates being lionized, and even assumes bad health to avoid it.” This was before Miss Fox had met Tennyson. Nine years later he was at her house, and she reminded him of the enthusiastic miner, but he had forgotten him ; “ but when he heard the name of Hallam, how his great gray eyes opened, and gave one a moment’s glimpse into the depths in which In Memoriam learned its infinite wail! . . . Tennyson is a grand specimen of a man, with a magnificent head set on his shoulders, like the capital of a mighty pillar, His hair is long and wavy, and covers a massive head, He wears a beard and moustache, which one begrudges as hiding so much of that firm, powerful, but finely-chiseled mouth. His eyes are large and gray, and open wide when a subject interests him ; they are well shaded by the noble brow, with its strong lines of thought and suffering. I can quite understand Samuel Lawrence calling it the best balance of head he had ever seen.”

Of the Carlyles Miss Fox has many characteristic sayings to report, and she confirms well the strong impression which Mrs. Carlyle’s character has lately produced on readers. She reads Emerson, too, with increasing admiration for his depth, and listens to such tales as travelers bring of the wonderful American, as when “ our friend Edwards gave me some private memories of Emerson. He is most quiet in conversation, never impassioned; his ordinary life is to sit by a brook some miles from Boston, and gaze on the sky reflected in the water, and dream out his problems of existence.” But Miss Fox’s simplicity is plainly rewarded throughout the book by more valuable confidences.

It is difficult to stop quoting from these delightful Memories. There is about them an air of such candor and such delicate sensibility that even pieces of light gossip lose their pettiness. One lays aside the book with regret, and with a sense of having been moving in the best society while reading it. We think better of our age, and have an honest complacency in the reflection that so charming a picture of notable Englishmen should be preserved for coming readers.