OF A MAN WHO LOVED AND WON.

Otago Witness, Issue 2757, 16 January 1907, Page 88

OF A MAN WHO LOVED AND WON.

By J. T. Pathc. In politics ' one man with convictions is equal to 99 who have m«rely interests. — John Stuart, Mill's axiom. John Stuart Mill was the antithesis of Ferdinand Lassalle. The flaws in the i " revolutionary Jew's" mental make-up ' were sound places in Mill. Lassalle the irrpetuous ifi a violent contrast to Mill the logician. Nor is there any similarity between Harriet Taylor and Helene yon Donniges. Helene was better looking than Harriet ; Harriet was better-living j than Helene. It is still problematical I whether Helene would have made Las- ' salle a good wife ; but Harriet Taylor made an ideal help-meet for John Stuart Mill. As in my previous article, under a slightly different heading, there is much of interest in the subject-study apart from the love story. But to deal fairly with my readers it is necessary to give some idea of the man who became a worshipper at the ehrine of his beloved. There was no nonsense about the Mills, elder or younger. James Mill, known to posterity as the elder Mill, had a reputation for hard thinking. He was a shoemaker, and his work will ever be treasured by men of letters. He was a, great man, and, apart from his son's achievements, leaves a record of sterling value. The elder Mill set fo work very early on young John Stuart. There was £o be no nonsense about his training. He had no boyhood, he played no games. Incompiehensiole as it may seem, he began the study of Greek at three and Latin at eight years of age ! Hie father was his tutor, and a hard master he waa, bufc always kind. Mill the younger dived into literature which is generally shunned by the mass of mankind. As was to be i expected, he did not assimilate much that he read. But it was of use. Mr W. L. Courtney, the author of one of the many lives of Mill, has an illuminating note on this phase of the 'question which I feel bound to quote t We are much interested in education, and this 10 apropos of some recent discussions. After pointing out that Mill's later writings do not abound with direct quotations or refined allusions, which we expect from the scholarly, Courtney says : — "On ths contrary, they are somewhat poor in this respect." Yet, if ever any man had a chance of showing extensive reading and wide acquaintance with literature, it waa John Stuart Mill. But the fact seems to be that memory and culture depend largely on the practice of the imagination in early years. The youthful mind is not very receptive of facts, but is always alive to the imaginative treatment of facts. Plato, in his ' Republic,' gives utterance to a striking paradox on this matter. When he is discussing the primary education, he says that instruc-. tion must first begin with falsehoods, by which he means mythical tales." In the "Journals of Caroline Fox" I find the following, being the gist of Mill's judgment on his early training: — "This method of early, intense application he would not recommend to others ; in most cases it would not answer, and where it does the buoyancy of youth is entirely, superseded by the maturity of manhood* and action is very likely to be m.erjje.4 ||

reflection. ' I never was a boy,' he said, ' never played at cricket ; it is better to let Nature have her own way.' " "I never was a boy!" This early and constant application may have made John Stuart Mill the man he was ; but I firmly believe that " in most cases it would not answer." Fancy trying it on the colonial youth ! As was to be expected with a boy who had no holidays — or, rather, a boy who was always a man in cares, — he could do no feats of skill in physical strength, and knew none of the ordinary bodily exercises. Whether John Stuart Mill would have been better or worse, ti-ained differently, can only be left to conjecture. The point of the matter is that were our children to Jbe trained on the same lines we would soon have a nation of mental wrecks. Elbert Hubbard, writing of this early training of Mill, aptly points the moral by introducing the experience of a racehorse: — " Axtell. the trotter, in his day held both the two-year-old and three-year-old records. He was driven in harness from the time he was weaned, and was given work that would have cocked the ankles and sent old horses over on their knees. But Axtell stood the test, and grew strong. Certain horsemen, seeing the success of Axtell, tried his driver's plan, and one millionaire I know ruined a thousand colts, and never produced a single racehorse, by religiously following the plan upon which Axtell thrived." Mill tells us in his "Autobiography": " I learned no Latin until my eighth vpar, at which time, however, I was famili.'.r with JSsop's Fables, most of the Anabasis, the Memorabilia of Xenophon, and the Lives of Philosophers by Diogenes Lacitius, part of Lucian, and the Ad Demonieum and Ad Xicoclem of Isociates.' Besides the'-er Plato, Plutarch. Gibbon, Hume, and Rollin were book companions. and he was contemplating a philosophy of history. He was born in 1806. and was directly under his fathers influerce until 1820. It is soberly set out that in 1825 he went to "work" at the India House Tor £30 a year! And Courtney says that the next 15 years of his life are murh the most interesting. Shortly "after his entry into the India House he revised his reasoning and preconceived notions. What is called " the crisis " in bis career might well be matter for a separate study. Suffice to vay that he found himself obliged to disagree with some of his father's conclusions, and not a few of his own. - The result of it all was that we find Mill occupying a high position among nineteenth c entury thinkers. I question if In many respects that great century prodiued a more acute or logical mind. The Sage of Chelsea somewhat ungraciously spoke of Mill to Caroline Fox thus : *' He is too fond of demonstrating every thing. If John Mill weie to get up to heaven, he would be hardly 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 au industrial class. I'm willing to leave all that." Mill was once persuaded to stand for Parliament. He had no personal wish to mteK Parliament^ flf refused either t$

canvass or to spend any money. He would give none of his time or labour to local interests, he would answer no question bearing on his religious beliefs, and he affirmed his conviction that women should have the franchise. Little wonder a well-known literary man declared that the Almighty Himself would have no chance of election on such a programme ! Yet Mill won by several hundreds. That was 41 years ago, and there are women in gaol to-day in England for too strenuously advocating the extension of the franchise to their sex! Truly we move slowly, and not always surely. A rather remarkable incident happened during this election. It is interesting and instructive. In "Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform," he had published a judgment on the working classes of England to the effect that though they dif fered from those of other countries in being ashamed of lying, they were generally liars. Mill was af-ked at a meeting of working men if he had written this. He unhesitatingly answered. "I did." Strange as it may seem to some, he was loudly applauded. Courtney says that the first working 'man who snoke atter Mr Mill was Mr Odger. <md he said, amid cheers, that the working classes had no desire not to be told of their faults They wanted friends, not flattereis, and felt under obligation to anyone wlio told them anything in themselves which lie sincerely believed to require amendment. That is* a vntue of which too much cannot be said in favour. Mill's own pronouncement on the incident was in these words: — "A more stnking instance never rame under my notice of what, I believe, is the experience of those who best know the woiking classes, that the most essential of all recommendations to their favour is that of complete straightforwardness ; it« presence outweighs in their minds very stiong objections, while no amount of other qualities will make amends for its apparent absence." I am fearful. lest the gentle reader will imagine I have forgotten Harriet Taylor. It is necessary. howe\er. to understand a man before you can understand his actions. Mill was always respected as a man of absolute piobity of character and extraordinary scholarly attainments. His religious views weie not generally shared, but in this matter Mr Gladstone felt it fitting to dub Mill the " Samt ol Ration.ilifDi." It would be long and. peichance. tedious to notice at leuy,th the hooka win ten by Mill. Much of his woik. as we shall see. he puts to the credit of the woman who was. in part, his inspiration. In 1831 Mill met Mrs Taylor It \va a at a dinner given in her own house. Harriet Martineau was present, and Roebuck and W. J. Fox. In those days learned di>quisitions were delivered on the problems which perplex, and the house of the Taylors was a rendezvous for biainy teople. Mr Taylor was Mrs Taylor's usband. He was not a remaikable man in any degree. He w-as proud of his wile's attainments, and welcomed her clever friends. It is clear that only an intellectual affinity drew Mill and Mrs Tavlor together at first The acquaintance went on and deepened. At the time of meeting Mill was 25, Mrs Taylor 23. Xhc la<lj was not what might be called

handsome — many would call her plain. She was young, ambitious, thoughtful, and full of life. One eye was rather more closed than the other, and Mill induLgently called this her " critical eye." Mr Taylor was a good husband. He indulged all her wishes. He was not intellectual ; his wife was. He encouraged her meeting with notables. And the close friendship between Mrs Ta 3 -lor and John Stuart Mill did not disturb anyone's serenity. It was later, when Mrs C4rundy got to talking ; but there is not a semblance of proof that there was ever any reason for that lady's interference. True it is that there was thoughtless gossip even by great men. For instance. Dioraeli. in characteristic language and attitude, declared that " the plan of having a husband and also a lover is not without precedent." We know, however, that many of the clever sayings of Disraeli were not always as correct as they might ha\e been. It wa6 with Mr Ta}'lor's unquestioned concurrence that Mill and Mrs Taylor collaborated in literary work. It began by Mrs Taylor allowing Mill io peruse a manuscript on a subject on which she had decided opinions. Mill read it. and lent her a manuscript be had written on the same subject. At their first meeting Mrs Taylor insisted that " all help must _be mutual. No man can help a women unless she helps him — the benefit of help lies as much in the giving as in the receiving."' It may not be the unexpected which always h^ipens. It is tiue. nevertheless, that some good people hate to be sur prised. When it dawned on Mill's contemporaries that he was in love with Harriet Taylor they were astonished and disappointed. They did not exactly deny his right to fall in love with whom he pleased, but they never thought he would succumb to any woman's charms. He was thought to be proof against affairs of the heart. In the popular mind there was no "nonsense" about Mill. Like a, wise man. Mill attended to his own business. He sacrificed those friends who made their friendship an excuse to advise him as to his line of conduct. Mr Taylor was proud of his wife's association with Mill's work. But doubtless all the while that tnendship was deepening and becoming an all-absorbing love which could not be denied. To little Helen Taylor Mill was a constant attendant. He taught her botany, and those who wanted to see him were invariably advised to " look for him with a flaxen-haired little sprite of a girl any Saturdaj' afternoon on Hampton Heath." Mr Taylor died in 1849. Just inside two years afterwards John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor were made one. They Tsere -happy as humans can be on this troublesome planet, and for over seven \ears that happiness was complete. There was no obstacle to their love. Then she died. His grief was unbounded. In the "Autobiography" he writes thus: — " I can say nothing which could describe, even in the faintest manner, what that loss was and is. But, because I know that she would have wished it. I endeavour to make the best of what life I have left, and to work on for her purposes with such diminished strength as can be derived from thoughts of her and communion with her memory." Thus did Mill show the man in the midst of hies grief. The praise Mill lavishes on Harriet Taylor Ls always of the most extravagant, if she was half as good as he insists she was, then the world lost a priceless treasure when Harriet Taylor died. She wis. according to Mill, the possessor of all the womanly virtues and the schohirlv attributes which are most highly prized. In the midst of many eloquent passages on her virtues, as he oaw them, I tan not find any more striking than this dedi cation to his volume " On Liberty '" • — ■ "To the beloved and deplored memoir of her who was the inspirer, and in part the author, of all that is best in my writings — the fuend and wife, whose exalted sense of truth and right was my st longest incitement, and whose approba ti<i'i was my chief reward — I dedicate this \olnme Like all that I have written for niMiy years, it belongs as much to her as to* me, but the woik as* it stands has had. m a very insufficient degree, tl c u\f stiinalile advantage of her revision : some ot the most important poitions having been reseivod for a moie careful )* examination, which they aif now ncuT df stmed to iei five. Were 1 but rapabV of mterpieting to the world one-half ot the great thoughts and noble feeling wlik h arc buried in hei gia\e. I should be the medium of a gieati^r bennh't to it than is likely to aiiso from anything that I ran write, uiipiouipted and uiiaisisU'd by her all but unmaHni wisdom."' Man\ authoi* haw- dtduated their books to their life partners, hut I know of no dedication so tiioiotmii. or whiih breathe^ such a spirit rti self abnegation. It i.m he dismissed, like the other i efon-ni ns io her influence, with a chuilish "Bali' But the main fact is that Mill uioio these wonderful works, and he dc-( laics that Harnet Taylor was his uispuatioii Hf should know best. Whotliur it was real or imaginary, I aui thankful for Hcime! Tdy)ov. Accoidiag in Mil). )(.•. help meet played a large pait m hi^ " Political Economy." In a few pre sen tation » ojnes he wrote thih dedication — ' " To Mis John Taylor, who of all pei-ons known to the author is the nio-st lnjjhlv •jiidhfied either to oiiguute oi to appivii ] die speculation on social ad\ an< em< nt. | thi^ work is, with the lushest respect i and esteem, dedicated." And. bo it ir> mernbered, Mill knew most of the learned , men and women of his day. ' If. as I believe. Mill was a logical and | dear thinker, he was certainly also a dc-\out and constant lover. Even in his mourning, as shown by the buef extiarts I have quoted, he gave further evidence ] of his unquenchable passion for Harriet Tavlor. Li his heart "he reigned alone. .iud till his denth he woishijjped her meinoiy and loved her From the year of his wife's death (1858) onward be was inoie oi less a<.ti\e. Helen i

Taylor, as far as possibfe. took the place of Tier mother, and smoothed the last years of an eminent man. She tended his plants and shared his love for botany. He died at Avignon in 1873, and the world mourned the loss of a great spirit. There is no question but that his work will live. He rendered yeoman service to his countrymen, and his countrymen wctc thankful. Good and nablfr men are few. His body lies buried beside that of his wife, and those firm friends in life rest together in death;