with him, as was his wont, on points of philosophy and religious doubt.1 The Master of Balliol answered him in a remarkable utterance. "Your poetry has an element of philosophy more to be considered than any regular philosophy in England. It is almost too much impregnated with philosophy, yet this to some minds will be its greatest charm. I believe that your 'In Memoriam ' and your 'Crossing the Bar' will live for ever in men's hearts."2 And he spoke to me afterwards of my father's "great and deep strength." The qualities in Jowett which most attracted my father were his childlikeness, his absolute simplicity of life, his aversion from all that was unreal and affected, his admiration of what seemed to him to be truthful and naturally beautiful, and his power of imagination, which my father thought essential in any philosopher. Another bond between them was that both had it in their hearts to help their brother men to the utmost of their power. The poor student who needed help, the wealthy student who needed guidance, could have no truer friend than the Master of Balliol; and as for my father, I need hardly say that wherever in the world help seemed to be needed which he could give, he was sure to give it ungrudgingly and unostentatiously. Later in the month Mr. Dakyns, and Mr. and Mrs. Craik, Mr. and Mrs. Bram Stoker and Mr. Walter Leaf came to see us. With Mr. Craik he looked over all the proofs of his new volume, "Death of Enone," ""Akbar's Dream," etc. The last poem he finished was "Whirl and follow the Sun," and the last prose passage he inserted was the preface to "Kapiolani." This book he felt was his last will and testament to the world, and throughout there are echoes of the different notes that he had struck before, and a summing-up of the faith in which he had walked. With Mr. Bram Stoker he talked of the arrangements for the production of "Becket," some misprints greatly amusing him. He was sitting with an Iliad on his knee and the talk naturally turned on Homer. "You know," he said to Leaf, "I never liked that theory of yours about the many poets." Leaf spoke 1 I remember my father saying of animated discussion, after a windy night.' " 2 Jowett has also left this utterance in a MS. Note. You rarely find dew Mr. Gladstone writes, October 25th, 1895: "I have a great conception of your father as philosopher. The 'sage' of Chelsea (a genius too) was small in comparison with him. Every one admires your father: I look upon him in his works and words with reverence." 1892 THE "ILIAD" 769 about his "splendid translation" of the simile at the end of II. VIII., three lines of which recur in I. xvi., and asked him if he did not think they were far more appropriate in the latter book, and had the appearance of being borrowed in VIII. "Yes," he said, "I have always felt that, I must say ": and he then enlarged for some time upon the greatness of Homer, quoting many lines from both the Iliad and Odyssey. CHAPTER XLVI THE LAST CHAPTER Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark ; For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar. SOME of my father's last talks have been recorded and I quote them in brief. In his view of the Gospel of Christ he found his Christianity undisturbed by jarring of sects and of creeds; but he said, "I dread the losing hold of forms. I have expressed this in my 'Akbar.' There must be forms, yet I hate the need for so many sects and separate services." "The life after death, Lightfoot and I agreed, is the cardinal point of Christianity. I believe that God reveals Himself in every individual soul: and my idea of heaven is the perpetual ministry of one soul to another." To some short notes on "In Memoriam" which he had written for future publication, one explaining Section XLIII. was 1892 LAST TALKS 771 added: "If the immediate life after death be only sleep, and the spirit between this life and the next should be folded like a flower in a night slumber, then the remembrance of the past might remain, as the smell and colour do in the sleeping flower; and in that case the memory of our love would last as true, and would live pure and whole within the spirit of my friend until after it was unfolded at the breaking of the morn, when the sleep was over." Politics were to my father the good of the world, and passionately did he feel for all that concerned what he considered the welfare of the Empire. During these last months he talked with pride of the great work we had done in Egypt: and he took the greatest interest in the proposed schemes for Old Age Pensions for the poor. The mere working on behalf of party, as far as his own conviction went, was to him unintelligible, as well as the love of power and of rule for their own sakes. That all should work conscientiously and harmoniously together for the common weal, each with such differing power as had been given to each man, recognising the value of the difference, was his highest ideal of government. While reading an article in the Spectator on blank verse, he observed: "I have been reading in the Spectator that Wordsworth and Keats are great masters of blank verse, who are also great in rhyme. Keats was not a master. of blank verse. It might be true of Wordsworth at his best. Blank verse can be the finest mode of expression in our language." He often quoted from Wordsworth now, and was always greatly moved by "Yarrow Revisited," and particularly by the following stanza : "And if, as Yarrow, through the woods Did meet us with unaltered face Though we were changed and changing: If, then, some natural shadows spread Our inward prospect over, The soul's deep valley was not slow Its brightness to recover." "I never could care," he said one day, "about French They are so artificial. The French language Alexandrines. lends itself much better to slighter things. Some of Béranger's Chansons are exquisite, for example his lyric to 'Le Temps,' with the chorus: 'O par pitié, lui dit ma belle, Vieillard, épargnez nos amours!' 'L'Agonie' by Sully Prudhomme I have just been reading, and think it beautiful, yet very sad; and there are things of Alfred de Musset like 'Tristesse' which seem to me perfect. I consider him a greater artist than Victor Hugo, but on smaller lines. Victor Hugo1 is an unequal genius, sometimes sublime; he reminds one that there is only one step between the sublime and the ridiculous. 'Napoléon gênait Dieu,' Napoleon irked God.' Was there ever such an expression ? 66 Among Hugo's poems I like some of the Légende des Siècles, and a lyric 'Gastibelza.' His finest play is Le Roi s'amuse; but Mary Tudor is a mere travesty.” "In his smaller poems such as those in Wilhelm Meister," he said, "Goethe shows himself to be one of the great artists of the world. He is also a great critic: yet he always said the best he could about an author. Good critics are rarer than good authors." Talking of localisers, "I am told by a certain gentleman that this mill is the original mill in the 'Miller's Daughter,' and that that oak was 'The Talking Oak,' and that hall 'Locksley Hall.' Never anything of the sort. Why do they give a poet no credit for imagination? The power of poetical creation seems to be utterly ignored now. This modern realism is hateful, and No man with an imagination can be tied Turner was an imaginative painter, and how absurd it would be to account for some of his works. There may be special suggestions." destroys all poetry. down for his ideal. Referring to the pictures at Blenheim, "I remember the very strange simile which the gardener made to me fifty years ago when he showed me over the place. We were talking of the stories told about the then Duke of Marlborough's unpopularity. He said, 'You see, Sir, when a man goes down in his luck, every one points at him as if he were a church steeple.' 1 In 1885 he came across Amiel's Journal Intime, and thought his criticisms on Hugo and literature in general good; but that the Journal throughout was too morbid for anything. The modern French poets were read by him with genuine interest. The last French poems he read were by Coppée, and by Jean Aicard. |