OUR LITERARY CORNER.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12593, 8 September 1906, Page 7

OUR LITERARY CORNER.

HERBERT SPENCER AND SOME LITERARY FRIENDS

(Bt an Oli> Assistant.) (SPECIAIXT WBITTEN FOB " THE PRESS".} The philosopher ie usually a man of fey friendships. He sits on his solitary pt-A, wrapt in. tbo clouds of his thoughts or thundering at intervals ajrainst the occupant cf an adjacent ara distant peak. If wo except Epi--urue ar.d J'k-iitham—and thoir relabione with others were, rather those cf master with disciple than of friend. wl th friend—there is hardly ono eminent phil<*oplior who is kr.own for Jus friendship with any oi his peers. A single exaiuplo comes back to memory. The friendship of David Hume with \dam Smith «as probably as tender ' the unemotional natures of the two jnen permitt«."J, and it was thoroughly Itoval and uneiivioue. An anecdote is credibly related of their intimacy Desiring to bring tho question of the immortality of roul to a practical test, they asrr«"d thufc whichever ot them dit'd » rst d\ou\<l revisit tho elimpvw of tho moon and meet hie <M friend in a then solitary part of Edinlwgli still called The Meadows. The ureat sceptic.-, ghost had no chance ot keepin." t.he tr.\»t. It ie characteristic of the'miin and tho timo that Smith never would walk in the -Meadows after ' Humes death. A closer parallel with Horhert Spencer was fiinv.ithed by Victor Cousin. From early manhood to old »>'<> tho French philosopher. }iv«l „ the great world ; Jio went everywhere and kne«<ive,ryoiw>; but he had a greater knack of making enounce than making friend*. Herbert Spenoor also lived nviicih in the world, and he .lined cut almost as frequently aa Cousin but Iμ had many friends and set store by them. He once remarked to the writer that he had tried to live out of London, but ho found that the mew consciousness of being out of leadi of his acquaintances made, him miserable, even although when ho was resident in I/>ndon he did not meet them. To the Derby friends of his youth Jk? clave to t'ho last. His friendship wiith the. chief of them, Edward bott. a banker, lived on without a break fos nearly half a century, ilis letters to Ixrtt during a great part of that period nre tho chief English •record of hifi doings, and whenever his health gave way, Derfiy (mainly Im>enuse liOtt and "others resided there) ■urn tho place ho most gladly fled to. Spencer's manner with these old friends, even after he had attained fame, was ever simple, cordial, and j unaffected. Though they had been i" chosen by accident, not by affinity, and had tho Rinallest intellectual pretensions, ho talked with them on tho gravest topics, but never with the least assumption of superiority. With them, at least, ho remained wholly unspoiled. GEQRGE ELIOT. One of his earliest acquaintances in London was Jolm, Chapman. Fifty years ago Chapman was one of tho best-known London publishers. What llenducl was to the French romantic school, that was Chapman to our , liardlv loss brilliant English romantic school. In the seventies he was a venerable-looking man of quiet manners and gravo speech, who (like Ren- , duel with Adolpne Jullion) had much to tell of his former authors. These ■ ho had received on Monday evenings in his large house in tho Strand. Thither came Froudo, Frank Newman,' John i Oxenford, Mrs Lynn Linton, and many ' another bearer of a now-honoured ( name. There were knitted two of Spencer's most prized friendships— those with Lewes and with Marian Erane. Tli* .intimacy with Lewes was ; first in the order of time; the intimacy with George Eliot was'first in the order : of importance. Spencer and she took ; to r ono another amazingly. ''Hβ is a good, delightful creature," aho rather , . patMnieingly writes, "and I always ] toel better for being with him." A , few jears afterwards Spencer wae to • confess that he felt the better for reading <tao of her books—perhaps "Adam i iJede. A month later, she considers her '"Drightcst; spot" to be her "deliriously calm iriendehip' ,, with him. "We '< see each other every day," ahe saye, i eiwjuive a delightful camaraderie in everything. But for him," she adds, _my hfo« would be desolate enough ,? < Do not these words betray the dawn'n? « f * feeling etroneer tlnan friendship? Yet they agreed that there was : no reason why , they should not have : m much of cadi other's society as they liked. Such a resolution might liave been oompromieing, and even danger- • ous, if taken by others; it was superfluously safe iand wholly innoxious with such a woman and such a man—perhaps the intellectually highest pair that hare been co cloeely allied eince the time of Michael Angelo and Vittoria Colonna. Why could they not have married and furnished the world with an example of a still jhugher union than, a Platonio friendship? Their frequent promenades on the terrece overiooking the Thames end their many visits to the opera in company, set afloat tho report tlat they were affianced, and in Spencer's last years <m admirer asked him point-blank whether there wee any truth in the rumour. .He then gave it en express denial, arid it ie clear that sentiment did not enter into tho relationship. Alas, thero was an insuperable obstacle, "l'hywoal beauty," he confesses, 'ma sine qua non with mc, as was onoo unhappily proved wJiero tho infolih-ctual and emotional traits were of tlw highest." The reference is unmistakably'to George Eliot. Though one of her early portraits is encaging, she can never have been beautiful, and in the seventies she wai homely. Her drcee was often rich, but it was peldom elegant, end in her earlier years -slie was nlmost slovenly. Her carriage was ungainly. Spencer allows, too. tliat there was something masculine in her personality. Masculine women have few lovei , ??. end Spencer admits. Apropos of the formidable Mrs Grote, that he had an aversion for masculine women. Yet his harmonious relations with Georgo Eliot for nearly thirty yoars eeom to show that they could "probably h-a ye lived together without jars or collisions. There would thus have been removed one of the obstacles to his roarryinK created (as he himself recognised) by hie intractable temper. He might havo been irritable with other women (he was brutal with some, women); he would hardly have been irritableVith one who wa<i hispintdlectnal peer, and in many ways his moral superior. Marriage with her might have solved another problem. Ho could not marry, he felt, because he was long unable to support a wife. Indeed, he> was ecarcely able to support himself, and ho «ould not marry tho rich widow of whom London gossip in 1870 declared him to bo in quest, from dread of the servitude that such a relationship might entail. Georgo Eliot woe always wlf-supporting. and after she took to norel-writinp klio earned enough to enable Len»>«'tri dedicate himself unr*- ,- •"rvodjy t, o th« study of philosophy. Bμ aught Lave enabled a greater than

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED MATTER.

NOTES ON BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Lewes to do the same. "Would not the more intimate union of these two high natures have eoftened the stern c?utlinee of that system of physics and metaphysics where "sexual selection' , k for the most part conspicuous by its ali&cmce? Spencer's refusal to accept the boon that Heaven co plainly sent him did not affect hia relations with. Georgo Eliot. From that time till her death never a cloud ehadovred their fraak and trustful intercourse. High literary courtesies parsed between them—on his part in the "Psychology"; an hers in '"Middlemaroh.'' He was, of course, appreciative of her work, but he was a.'fio critical. Writing to Lewes at the time "Armgart" was published, 'ho criticised it as lacking dramatic character. He vieitod regularly at the well-known, house called The Priory, North Bank, .Regent's Park. He had a standing invitation to lunch there, ami ho afterwards accompanied them in their daily walk towards the heights cf Hampfrtead. Many an evening he spent there, and sometimes he joined the brilliant circle that assembled on Sunday afternoons. George Eliot did not generally aooc.pt invitations, an<l she did not often visit him. A single exceptional occasion comes back to memory. One Sunday morning, late in the seventies, a vk-iitor found him more depressed in sjirits than he had ever known the philosopher to be. He could not walk out, he said, he could not read, and he dared not reflect. Sunday though it t\ as. the visitor offered to play a game at billiards with him (thero was 'a billiard table in the house), but he was too far down for that. There was nothing for it but to send for Mr and Mrs Lowes to come to Baysivater ami play the part of David with King Saul. They promptly came, ami w\j need not doubt that the grave cheerfulness or Georgo Eliot ami Ijewes's vivacity .soon charmed away the evil spirit. "There was no woman in his life," said Jules Simon of Victor Cousin, and there was. in the usual 6ense, none in Spencer's, but the high and harmonious relations betwixt tho greatest philosopher ami the greatest novelist of their day twiVt a thread of intellectual romance in. both of their lives. GEORGE HENRY LEWES Unable or unwilling to marry her himself, Spencer introduced Miss Evans to a man of brilliant talent. Spencer first mot G. H. Lewes at Chapman's in the spring of 1850, and a& they walked homewards from the Strand they talked of the then famous ''Vestiges of Creation" and the still heretical development theory. They soon cemented the inotvly-formed friendship with long walke, especially on Sundays, as was then and for twenty-five years aftorwards the custom of men of letters in London. A four-days' excursion in the Valley of the Thames had memorable results for both of them. Lewes it woke up from a long fit of depression, almost despair, roused his energies, and Tevired his, dormant love of sriemce. In. Spencer it excited a train of thought that issued in the remarkable speculation on the laws of organic form. An autumn ramble in Kent tho samo year was less directly fruitful, but it brought Spencer the conception of the physiological division of labour, which played a great part in hia course of thought, for five or six years thereafter they had many a summer ramble together. Lewes (I learnt from another quarter) being on such occasions always in great force at the start, hut being apt to flag as hia companion was just getting under weigh. Lewes doubtless supplied the light musketry of facts and reflections, while Spencer brought to bear siege gune of big generalisatioiis. Both minds-wereetill rafJheir springtime, and their constant collision and mingling begat multitudes of ideas in both. Neither supplied criticism; both, freely gave sympathy. , If Huxley was the wit, Lewes was the humourist of Spencer's entourage. In later years his vivacity was •much sfbated, but he was lively and merry tb the last. Of hie roysterimg earlier years, Spencer had many anecdotes to relate. So mil th-stirring was he them that Dr. NeU Arnott, once favourably known as the -author of a text-book on physios, had often to leave tho room for fear of splitting his diaphragm. Lewes and a friend (Pigott, Examiner of Plays to the Lord Chamberlain) once got off a train at the terminus of a journey, and, by personating Freniohmeai who had lost their way, they partly induced ajid pairtly bullied the engine-driver into carrying them on the locomotive to tho next station. At a breakfast party Lewcfi (who had walked the Paris hospitals and spoke F.reneh without an accent) again posed as a. Frenohman. He liked, ho said, the convenient way that meat was delivered in London. Speaking in French-English, he told how he had observed that . a man came round with little pieces stuck <an bite of. stick. " The horrid man has been eating dog'© m £, a *\." said a lady to her neighbour. Such pranks certainly affected tho consideration in which he was generally held. Lewes good-humoredly accounted for his repute by his "specific levity. , Carlyle very unjustly wrote of him in his gruesome journal as "Ape Lewes, and Margaret Fuller's scornful allusion, after she had met him at Chelsea, will be remembered. Huxley spoke of him with undeserved contempt, for he was assuredly Huxley's peer. Even Spencer never seemed to do justice to him, at least in conversation. He made a tardy reparation in his "Autobiography." Lewes was not only a brilliant writer; ho was a'magnanimous man, and anecdotes of his nigh-mindedness could readily bo related. Dressed a la Carlyle, with soft broad-brim, Highland cloak, and long, unkempt hair, lie was a figure on the streets of London, and when he was walking in the neighbourhood of Hampstead with Georgo Eliot —tho two sometimes talking and freely gesticulating, sometimes each obviously pursuing his and her separate theme—the observer might well reflect that a more notable pair was seldom seen. George Eliot's story has been many times told; why should not Lewes'e variegated career be described in this age of overdone biography? CARLYLE. Lewes took Spencor down to Chelsea, where he was on a footing of moro intimacy than respect. Carlyle's journal has a reference to Spencer that seems unmistakable. One evening in February, 1854. Carlylo was visited by two mombers of Parliament nnd some others. These, he says, "to vhom Ape L.. and an unknown natural philospher sometimes seen here with him, hnd accidentally joined themeelvcs, stayed long. Nichts zu bedeuten," adds tho misanthrope. To the dyspeptic sage they were all alike, "totally without significance." In his eyes Spencer was a men of buckram, who wria of formulas all compact. He was, indeed, the greatest formulamonger the world has seen. It was, therefore, natural that the relations between the two should never be harmonious. Spencers oral account was that he found, when he visited Cheyne Row, "that he had either to sit silent and let Ca.rlyle pour forth a stream of sulphurous dwjinciation upon men and things, or else be always arguing with him. and as he disliked doing both, he ceased to go. Carlyle know little of Spencer's writings, but that did not hinder him from expressing a very joeitive ©atimite of the man. One ,

Sunday afternoon in the seventies a visitor ventured to interpose at a break in the torrent of invective, and mildly suggested that Herbert Spencer held a different opinion. "On, Herbert Spencer!" broke out the prophet, grown foul-mouthed in his old age, "Herbert iSpeJicer is an IM-measurable a-ass." Some good-natureH friend must have reported the outbreak tp Spencer, and a year or two after, on a winter evening In an hotel at he retaliated in kind. "Weill If, as he saye, the population of England consists of thirty millions, mostly foolSj he is the greatest fool of the lot." "Thus met nnd thus parted." writes Scott of a legendary encounter between Samuel Johnson and Adam Smith, -whon the lexicographer waa for once outdone in abusive language, "two of the greatest moralists of the eighteenth century." Thus collided and thus rebounded, we may add, two of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth century.