Part 2
At this point of the narrative it is necessary to make a passing allusion to Doctors, who, far more than Premiers or Priests or any other class of men, have determined the course and condition of my life. I believe that I know, by personal experience, more about Doctors and Doctoring than any other man of my age in England. I am, in my own person, a monument of medical practice, and have not only seen, but felt, the rise and fall of several systems of physic and surgery. To have experienced the art is also to have known the artist; and the portraits of all the practitioners with whom at one time or another I have been brought into intimate relations would fill the largest album, and go some way towards furnishing a modest Picture-Gallery. Broadly speaking, the Doctors of the 'fifties and 'sixties were as Dickens drew them. The famous consultant, Dr. Parker Peps; the fashionable physician, Sir Tumley Snuffim; the General Practitioner, Mr. Pilkins; and the Medical Officer of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Insurance Company, Dr. Jobling; are in the highest degree representative and typical; but perhaps the Doctor--his name, unfortunately, has perished--who was called to the bedside of little Nell, and came with "a great bunch of seals dangling below a waistcoat of ribbed black satin," is the most carefully finished portrait. Such, exactly, were the Family Physicians of my youth. They always dressed in shiny black,--trousers, neckcloth, and all; they were invariably bald, and had shaved upper lips and chins, and carefully-trimmed whiskers. They said "Hah!" and "Hum!" in tones of omniscience which would have converted a Christian Scientist; and, when feeling one's pulse, they produced the largest and most audibly-ticking gold watches producible by the horologist's art. They had what were called "the courtly manners of the old school"; were diffuse in style, and abounded in periphrasis. Thus they spoke of "the gastric organ" where their successors talk of the stomach, and referred to brandy as "the domestic stimulant." When attending families where religion was held in honour, they were apt to say to the lady of the house, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made"; and, where classical culture prevailed, they not infrequently remarked--
Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops.
By the way, my reference to "the domestic stimulant" reminds me that on stimulants, domestic and other, this school of Physicians relied with an unalterable confidence. For a delicate child, a glass of port wine at 11 was the inevitable prescription, and a tea-spoonful of bark was often added to this generous tonic. In all forms of languor and debility and enfeebled circulation, brandy-and-water was "exhibited," as the phrase went; and, if the dose was not immediately successful, the brandy was increased. I myself, when a sickly boy of twelve, was ordered by a well-known practitioner, called F. C. Skey, to drink mulled claret at bedtime; and my recollection is that, as a nightcap, it beat bromide and sulphonal hollow. In the light of more recent science, I suppose that all this alcoholic treatment was what Milton calls "the sweet poyson of misused wine," and wrought havoc with one's nerves, digestion, and circulation. It certainly had this single advantage, that when one grew to man's estate, and passed from "that poor creature, small beer," to the loaded port and fiery sherry of a "Wine" at the University, it was impossible to make one drunk. And thereby hangs a tale. I was once writing the same sentiment in the same words for a medical journal, and the compositor substituted "disadvantage" for "advantage," apparently thinking that my early regimen had deprived me of a real happiness in after-life.
Such were the Doctors of my youth. By no sudden wrench, no violent transition, but gently, gradually, imperceptibly, the type has transformed itself into that which we behold to-day. No doubt an inward continuity has been maintained, but the visible phenomena are so radically altered as to suggest to the superficial observer the idea of a new creation; and even we, who, as Matthew Arnold said, "stand by the Sea of Time, and listen to the solemn and rhythmical beat of its waves," even we can scarcely point with confidence to the date of each successive change. First, as to personal appearance. When did doctors abandon black cloth, and betake themselves (like Newman, when he seceded to the Church of Rome) to grey trousers? Not, I feel pretty sure, till the 'seventies were well advanced. Quite certainly the first time that I ever fell into the hands of a moustached Doctor was in 1877. Everyone condemned the hirsute appendage as highly unprofessional, and when, soon after, the poor man found his way into a Lunatic Asylum, the neighbouring Doctors of the older school said that they were not surprised; that "there was a bad family history"; and that he himself had shown marked signs of eccentricity. That meant the moustache, and nothing else. Then, again, when was it first recognized as possible to take a pulse without the assistance of a gold chronometer? History is silent; but I am inclined to assign that discovery to the same date as the clinical thermometer, a toy unknown to the Doctors of my youth, who, indeed, were disposed to regard even the stethoscope as new-fangled. Then "the courtly manners of the old school"--when did they go out? I do not mean to cast the slightest aspersion on the manners of my present doctor, who is as polite and gentlemanlike a young fellow as one could wish to meet. But his manners are not "courtly," nor the least "of the old school." He does not bow when he enters my room, but shakes hands and says it's an A1 day and I had better get out in the motor. Whatever the symptoms presented to his observation, he never says "Hah!" or "Hum!" and he has never once quoted the Bible or Horace, though I have reason to believe that he has read both. Then, again, as a mere matter of style, when did Doctors abandon the majestic "We," which formerly they shared with Kings and Editors? "We shall be all the better when we have had our luncheon and a glass of sherry," said Sir Tumley Snuffim. "We will continue the bark and linseed," murmured Dr. Parker Peps, as he bowed himself out. My Doctor says, "Do you feel as if you could manage a chop? It would do you pounds of good"; and "I know the peroxide dressing is rather beastly, but I'd stick it another day or two, if I were you." Medical conversation, too, is an art which has greatly changed. In old days it was thought an excellent method of lubricating the first interview for the Doctor to ask where one's home was, and to state, quite irrespective of the fact, that he was born in the same neighbourhood; having ascertained that one was, say, a Yorkshireman, to remark that he would have known it from one's accent; to enlarge on his own connexions, especially if of the territorial caste; to describe his early travels in the South of Europe or the United States; and to discourse on water-colour drawing or the flute. "We doctors, too, have our hobbies; though, alas! the demands of a profession in which _Ne otium quidem otiosum est_ leave us little time to enjoy them."
Quite different is the conversation of the modern doctor. He does not lubricate the interview, but goes straight to business--enquires, examines, pronounces, prescribes--and then, if any time is left for light discourse, discusses the rival merits of "Rugger" and "Soccer," speculates on the result of the Hospital Cup Tie, or observes that the British Thoroughbred is not deteriorating when he can win with so much on his back; pronounces that the Opera last night was ripping, or that some much-praised play is undiluted rot. Not thus did Dr. Parker Peps regale Mrs. Dombey, or Sir Tumley Snuffim soothe the shattered nerves of Mrs. Wititterly. The reaction against alcoholic treatment can, I believe, be definitely dated from the 10th of January, 1872, when the heads of the medical profession published their opinion that "alcohol, in whatever form, should be prescribed with as much care as any powerful drug, and the directions for its use should be so framed as not to be interpreted as a sanction for excess." This was a heavy blow and deep discouragement to the school of Snuffim and Pilkins, and the system of port at 11, and "the domestic stimulant" between whiles, died hard.
But this is a long digression. I return to the Family Physician who prescribed for my youth. He was Dr. T. Somerset Snuffim, son of the celebrated Sir Tumley, and successor to his lucrative practice. His patients believed in him with an unquestioning and even passionate faith, and his lightest word was law. It was he who in 1862 pronounced me physically unfit for a Private School, but held out hopes that, if I could be kept alive till I was fourteen, I might then be fit for a Public School. Four years passed, and nothing particular happened. Then the time arrived when the decision had to be made between Public School and Private Tutor. After a vast amount of stethoscoping and pulse-feeling, Snuffim decided peremptorily against a Public School. My parents had a strong and just detestation of "private study" and its products, and they revolved a great many schemes for avoiding it. Suddenly my mother, who was not only the kindest but also the wisest of mothers, bethought herself of making me a Home-boarder at Harrow. She was one of those persons who, when once they are persuaded that a certain course is right, do not let the grass grow under their feet, but act at once. We did not desert our old home in Bedfordshire, and my father had still his official residence in Speaker's Court; but my parents took a house at Harrow, at the top of Sudbury Hill, and there we established ourselves in September, 1867.
On the 4th of November in that year, Matthew Arnold, who was contemplating a similar move, wrote to Lady de Rothschild:--"What you tell me is very important and interesting. I think Lady Charles Russell has a boy who, like my eldest boy, is an invalid, and I dare say you will some time or other be kind enough to ascertain from her whether the school life is at all trying for him, or whether she has any difficulty in getting him excused fagging or violent exercises."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The L.C.C., which placed this slab, made a topographical error. James Wright, in his _Compendious View of the late Tumults and Troubles in this Kingdom_ (1683), says: "The Lord Russel ... was on the day following, viz. Saturday the 21st of July, Beheaded in Lincoln's Inn Fields. For which purpose a Scaffold was erected that Morning on that side of the Fields next to the Arch going into Duke Street, in the middle between the said Arch and the corner turning into Queen Street."
[2]
To the Editor of _The Times_.
SIR--As Links with the Past seem just now to be in fashion, permit me to supply two which concern my near relations.
1. My uncle, Lord Russell (1792-1878) visited Napoleon at Elba in December, 1814, and had a long conversation with him, which is reported in Spencer Walpole's "Life of Lord John Russell." There must be plenty of people now alive who conversed with my uncle, so this Link cannot be a very rare one.
2. My second Link is more remarkable. My father (1807-1894) remembered an old Highlander who had been "out" with Prince Charles Edward in 1745. Of course, this "linking" took place at the extremes of age, my father being a little boy and the Highlander a very old man. My grandfather, the sixth Duke of Bedford, was one of the first Englishmen who took a shooting in the Highlands (on the Spey), and the first time that my father accompanied him to the north, Prince Charlie's follower was still living near the place which my grandfather rented. Your obedient servant, _Sept. 6, 1910._ GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL.
II
HARROW
Not to River nor Royal Keep, Low Meads nor level Close, Up to the sturdy wind-worn steep, _Levavi oculos_; To four red walls on a skyward climb, Towering over the fields and Time. E. MILNER-WHITE.
When Dr. Vaughan re-created Harrow School, after its long decadence under Longley and Wordsworth, he wished that the number should never exceed five hundred. Of late years the school has been greatly enlarged, but in my time we were always just about the number which, in Vaughan's judgment, was the largest that a Head-master could properly supervise. That number is embalmed in Edward Howson's touching song:--
"Five hundred faces, and all so strange! Life in front of me, Home behind-- I felt like a waif before the wind, Tossed on an ocean of shock and change."
Some of those faces I shall presently describe; but, in reviewing my life at Harrow, my first tribute must be paid to my Head-master--for forty-five years the kindest, most generous, and most faithful of friends. Henry Montagu Butler, youngest son of Dr. George Butler, Dean of Peterborough and sometime Head-master of Harrow, was born in 1833, and educated at Harrow. He was Head of the School, made the cock-score in the Eton match at Lords, was Scholar and Fellow of Trinity, and Senior Classic in 1855. He was elected to the Head-mastership of Harrow, in succession to Dr. Vaughan, when he was only a few months over 26, and entered on his reign in January, 1860. It is not easy to describe what a graceful and brilliant creature he seemed to my boyish eyes, when I first saw him in 1867, nor how unlike what one had imagined a Head-master to be. He was then just thirty-four and looked much younger than he was. Gracefulness is the idea which I specially connect with him. He was graceful in shape, gesture, and carriage; graceful in manners and ways, graceful in scholarship, graceful in writing, pre-eminently graceful in speech. It was his custom from time to time, if any peculiar enormity displayed itself in the school, to call us all together in the Speech-Room, and give us what we called a "Pi-jaw." One of these discourses I remember as well as if I had heard it yesterday. It was directed against Lying, as not only un-Christian but ungentlemanlike. As he stood on the dais, one hand grasping his gown behind his back and the other marking his points, I felt that, perhaps for the first time, I was listening to pure and unstudied eloquence, suffused with just as much scorn against base wrongdoing as makes speech pungent without making it abusive. It should be recorded to Butler's credit that he was thoroughly feared. A Head-master who is not feared should be at once dismissed from his post. And, besides being feared, he was profoundly detested by bad boys. The worse the boy's moral character, the more he hated Butler. But boys who were, in any sense or degree, on the right side; who were striving, however imperfectly, after what is pure and lovely and of good report, felt instinctively that Butler was their friend. His preaching in the School Chapel (though perhaps a little impeded by certain mannerisms) was direct, interesting, and uplifting in no common degree. Many of his sermons made a lifelong impression on me. His written English was always beautifully pellucid, and often adorned by some memorable anecdote or quotation, or by some telling phrase. But once, when, owing to a broken arm, he could not write his sermons, but preached to us extempore three Sundays in succession, he fairly fascinated us. As we rose in the School and came into close contact with him, we found ever more and more to admire. It would be impertinent for me to praise the attainments of a Senior Classic, but no one could fail to see that Butler's scholarship was unusually graceful and literary. Indeed, he was literary through and through. All fine literature appealed to him with compelling force, and he was peculiarly fond of English oratory. Chatham, Burke, Canning, Sheil, and Bright are some of the great orators to whom he introduced us, and he was never so happy as when he could quote them to illustrate some fine passage in Cicero or Demosthenes. One other introduction which I owe to him I must by no means forget--Lord Beaconsfield's novels. I had read _Lothair_ when it came out, but I was then too inexperienced to discern the deep truths which underlie its glittering satire. Butler introduced me to _Sybil_, and thereby opened up to me a new world of interest and amusement. When Butler entertained boys at breakfast or dinner, he was a most delightful host, and threw off all magisterial awfulness as easily as his gown. His conversation was full of fun and sprightliness, and he could talk "Cricket-shop," ancient and modern, like Lillywhite or R. H. Lyttelton. In time of illness or failure or conscience-stricken remorse, he showed an Arthur-like simplicity of religion which no one could ignore or gainsay.
Next to Dr. Butler, in my list of Harrow masters, must be placed Farrar, afterwards Dean of Canterbury, to whom I owed more in the way of intellectual stimulus and encouragement than to any other teacher. I had, I believe, by nature, some sense of beauty; and Farrar stimulated and encouraged this sense to the top of its bent. Himself inspired by Ruskin, he taught us to admire rich colours and graceful forms--illuminated missals, and Fra Angelico's blue angels on gold grounds--and to see the exquisite beauty of common things, such as sunsets, and spring grass, and autumn leaves; the waters of a shoaling sea, and the transparent amber of a mountain stream. In literature his range was extremely wide. Nothing worth reading seemed to have escaped him, and he loved poetry as much as Butler loved oratory. When he preached in Chapel his gorgeous rhetoric, as yet not overwrought or over-coloured, held us spellbound; and though, or perhaps because, he was inclined to spoil the boys who responded to his appeals, and to rate them higher than they deserved, we loved and admired him as, I should think, few schoolmasters have been loved and admired.
When I speak of masters who were also friends, I should be ungrateful indeed if I omitted Arthur George Watson, in whose House I was placed as soon as the doctors were satisfied that the experiment could be tried without undue risks. Mr. Watson was a Fellow of All Souls, and was in all respects what we should have expected a member of that Society (elected the same day as the late Lord Salisbury) to be. It was said of C. P. Golightly at Oxford that, when he was asked his opinion of Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, he replied: "Well, if I were forced to choose the epithet which should be least descriptive of the dear Provost, I should choose _gushing_." Exactly the same might be said of Mr. Watson; but he was the most high-minded and conscientious of men, a thorough gentleman, inflexibly just, and a perfect House-Master. The days which I spent under his roof must always be reckoned among the happiest of my life.
Among masters who were also friends I must assign a high place to the Rev. William Done Bushell, who vainly endeavoured to teach me mathematics, but found me more at home in the sphere (which he also loved) of Ecclesiology. And not even the most thoughtless or ill-conditioned boy who was at Harrow between 1854 and 1882 could ever forget the Rev. John Smith, who, through a life-time overshadowed by impending calamity, was an Apostle to boys, if ever there was one, and the Guardian Angel of youthful innocence. Dr. Vaughan, no lover of exaggerated phrases, called him, in a memorial sermon, "the Christ of Harrow;" and there must be many a man now living who, as he looks back, feels that he owed the salvation of his soul to that Christ-like character.
During my first two years at Harrow, Dr. Westcott, afterwards Bishop of Durham, was one of the masters, and it has always been a matter of deep regret to me that I had no opportunity of getting to know him. He was hardly visible in the common life of the School. He lived remote, aloof, apart, alone. It must be presumed that the boys who boarded in his House knew something of him, but with the School in general he never came in contact. His special work was to supervise the composition, English and classical, of the Sixth Form, and on this task he lavished all his minute and scrupulous scholarship, all his genuine enthusiasm for literary beauty. But, until we were in the Sixth, we saw Westcott only on public occasions, and one of these occasions was the calling over of names on half-holidays, styled at Eton "Absence," and at Harrow "Bill." To see Westcott performing this function made one, even in those puerile days, feel that the beautifully delicate instrument was eminently unfitted for the rough work of mere routine on which it was employed. We had sense enough to know that Westcott was a man of learning and distinction altogether outside the beaten track of schoolmasters' accomplishments; and that he had performed achievements in scholarship and divinity which great men recognized as great. "Calling Bill" was an occupation well enough suited for his colleagues--for Huggins or Buggins or Brown or Green--but it was actually pathetic to see this frail embodiment of culture and piety contending with the clamour and tumult of five hundred obstreperous boys.
It was not only as a great scholar that we revered Westcott. We knew, by that mysterious process by which school-boys get to know something of the real, as distinct from the official, characters of their masters, that he was a saint. There were strange stories in the School about his ascetic way of living. We were told that he wrote his sermons on his knees. We heard that he never went into local society, and that he read no newspaper except _The Guardian_. Thus when Liddon, at the height of his fame as the author of the great Bampton Lectures, came to Harrow to preach on Founder's Day, it was reported that Westcott would not dine with the Head-master to meet him. He could not spare three hours from prayer and study; but he came in for an hour's conversation after dinner.