Part 4
But I must not mislead you into thinking that Sir Kenelm was merely a convivial trencherman. His biography as related in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ is as diverting as a novel--more so than many. Infant prodigy, irresistible wooer, privateer, scientist, religious controversialist, astrologer, and a glorious talker, he made a profound impression on the life of his time. But, as so often happens, his name has been carried down to posterity not by the strange laborious treatise he regarded as his opus maximum, but by his chance association with one of the great books of all time. When Digby was under honorable confinement (as a “Popish recusant”) at Winchester House, Southwark, in 1642, he was busy there with chemical experiment and the MS. of his _Of Bodies and Mans Soul_ (of which more in a moment). Apparently they treated political prisoners with more indulgence in those days. One evening he received a letter from his friend the Earl of Dorset, urging him to read a book that was making a stir among the intellectuals. One may think it was perhaps a trifle niggardly of Dorset merely to have recommended the book. To a friend in jail, surely he might (and it was just before Christmas) have sent a copy as a present. But the liberality of the Earl is not to be called in question: he had made Sir Kenelm at least one startlingly gracious gift--viz. Lady Digby herself, previously Dorset’s mistress. This oddly amusing story, or gossip, may be pursued in Aubrey’s _Brief Lives_, a fascinating book (published by the Oxford Press)--a sort of Social Register of seventeenth century England.
“Late as it was” when Sir Kenelm received the letter from his benefactor and colleague, he sent out at once (mark the high spirit of the true inquirer; also the sagacity of seventeenth century booksellers, who kept open at night)--
To let you see how the little needle of my Soul is throughly touched at the great Loadstone of yours, and followeth suddenly and strongly, which way soever you becken it.... I sent presently (as late as it was) to _Pauls_ Church-yard, for this Favourite of yours, _Religio Medici_: which found me in a condition fit to receive a Blessing; for I was newly gotten into my Bed. This good natur’d creature I could easily perswade to be my Bed-fellow, and to wake with me, as long as I had any edge to entertain my self with the delights I sucked from so noble a conversation.
Rarely have the pleasures of reading in bed had such durable result. The following day he spent in pouring out a long, spirited and powerful letter to Dorset (75 printed pages) which has become famous as _Observations upon Religio Medici_, and a few years later was included as a supplement to that book--where it still remains in most editions. In this tumbling out of his honourable meditations and excitements, Sir Kenelm took issue pretty smartly with Dr. Browne on a number of points, particularly in regard to his own special hobby of Immortality. He, just as much as the Norwich physician, loved to lose himself in an Altitudo; but in some cloudlands of airy doctrine Browne seemed to him too precise. “The dint of Wit,” Digby remarked felicitously of some theological impasse, “is not forcible enough to dissect such tough matter.”
These _Observations_ are of more than casual importance. Dorset, apparently, took steps (unknown to Digby) to have them published; and report of this coming blast roused Browne to protest courteously against “animadversions” based upon the unauthorized and imperfect version of his book--his own “true and intended Originall” being by this time in the printer’s hands. Digby had written his observations without knowing who the author of _Religio_ was. The letters that now passed between him and Browne are an exhilarating model of controversy goldenly conducted between gentlemen of the grand manner. “You shall sufficiently honour me in the vouchsafe of your refute,” writes Browne, “and I obliege the whole world in the occasion of your Pen.” To which Digby, avowing that his comments were written without thought of print and merely as a “private exercitation,” charmingly disclaims any ambition to enter public argument with so superior a scholar. “To encounter such a sinewy opposite, or make Animadversions upon so smart a piece as yours is, requireth such a solid stock and exercise in school learning. My superficial besprinkling will serve only for a private letter, or a familiar discourse with Lady auditors. With longing I expect the comming abroad of the true copy of the Book, whose false and stoln one hath already given me so much delight.” The delightful remark about lady auditors causes one to suspect that even in that day the germ of the lecture passion was moving in circles of high-spirited females.
Digby and Browne were evidently kinsprits. They were nearly of an age; Browne was a physician, and Digby--though many considered him a mountebank and charlatan--had a genuine scientific zeal for medical dabblings. His Powder of Sympathy, a nostrum for healing wounds at a distance, has been a cause of merriment among later generations; but Sir Kenelm was no fool and I am not at all sure that there wasn’t much excellent sense in his procedure. The injury itself was washed and kept under a clean bandage. The Powder of Sympathy was to be prepared from a paste of vitriol, and the instructions included necessity for mixing and exposing it in sunshine. Sir Kenelm was quite aware of the public appetite for hocus-pocus, and surely there was a touch of anticipatory Christian Science and Coué in his idea of keeping the patient’s mind off the trouble and giving him this harmless amusement in the open air. For the sympathetic powder, please note, was never to be applied to the wound itself, but only to something carrying the blood of the injured person--a stained bandage, a garment, or even the weapon with which the damage was done. The injury was left to the curative progress of Nature. This theory of treating not the wound but the weapon might well be meditated by literary critics. For instance, when some toxicated energumen publishes an atrocious book, the best course to pursue is not to attack the author but to praise Walter de la Mare or Stella Benson. This may be termed the allopathic principle in criticism; but few of us are steadfast enough to adhere to it.
Digby’s _Memoirs_--not published until 1827--exhibit him as the swashbuckler, and amorist by no means faint. They are amusing enough but give only a carnal silhouette. Perhaps he did not write the book himself: there is a vein of burlesque in the narrative that makes me suspicious. It purports to be an account of Sir Kenelm’s fidelity to his wife, the lovely Venetia; and we are told that the account was written under Antonian pressure. Importuned by ladies of much personal generosity and recklessness, Sir Kenelm austerely retires to a cave and pens this confession of uxorious loyalty. When you consider that the relations of Sir Kenelm and Lady Venetia were one of the fashionable uproars of the day, you begin to guess that the Memoir (in which all the characters are concealed by romantic pseudonyms) was an elaborate skit intended for private circulation, probably the work of some satirical friend. Exactly so, when any great scandal nowadays is riding on the front pages of the newspapers, do City Room reporters compose humorous burlesques of the printed “stories,” and these have delightful currency round the office.
So you will still find legends in print suggesting that Sir Kenelm was a blend of Casanova and Dr. Munyon. He has been attributed what historians used to call “Froude’s disease”--an insufficient curiosity as to the total of 2 and 2 when added together. But a man whose memory still makes a page and a half of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ such lively reading, must have had more than mere animal spirits in his make-up. It is easy to find testimony to his potent social and military accomplishments. But the man himself, his earnest scientific passions, his valiant speculation on human destinies, does not emerge from the entries in encyclopædias. For that you must look into his great book _Two Treatises: The Nature of Bodies, and The Nature of Mans Soul_ (1658). By the kindness of Mr. Wilbur Macey Stone, generous and astonishingly Elizabethan explorer of old books, I have an original, tawny and most aromatic copy of this queer treasure. The title page of the Second Treatise is endorsed, with a charming use of the aspirates--
SAMUEL MELLOR’S BOOK, December 22th 1792.
_Samuel Mellor his my Name and Cheshire is my Nation and Burton is my Dwellings Place and Christ is my Salvation this Book geven has A Gift to Samuel Mellor_
Sir Kenelm dedicates the volume to his son, in a touching and honourable letter dated “Paris the last of August 1644.” “The calamity of this time” (he says) “hath bereft me of the ordinary means of expressing my affection to you; I have been casting about, to find some other way of doing that in such sort, as you may receive most profit by it. Therein I soon pitched upon these Considerations; that Parents owe unto their children, not only material subsistence for their Body, but much more, spiritual contributions to their better part, their Mind.” Accordingly, with perfect gravity and that sombre and Latinized eloquence which was the peculiar gift of his century, he proceeds to expound in nearly 600 dense pages his observations on what we would call nowadays physics and psychology. It would be agreeable enough, if I did not fear to weary you, to copy down some of Sir Kenelm’s delightful shrewd comments. A few of his section headings will serve to give an idea of his matter. For instance:--
_The experience of burning glasses, and of soultry gloomy weather, prove light to be fire._
_Philosophers ought not to judge of things by the rules of vulgar people._
_The reason why the motion of light is not discerned coming towards us, and that there is some real tardity in it._
_The true sense of the Maxim, that Nature abhorreth from vacuity._
_The loadstone sendeth forth its emanations spherically. Which are of two kinds: and each kind is strongest in that hemisphere, through whose polary parts they issue out._
_The reason why sometimes the same object appears through the prism in two places: and in one place more lively, in the other place more dim._
_How the vital spirits sent from the brain, do run to the intended part of the body without mistake._
_Of the rainbow, and how by the colour of any body, we may know the composition of the body it self._
_How things renewed in the fantasie, return with the same circumstances that they had at first._
_Why divers men hate some certain meats, and particularly cheese._
Here, you will agree, was a man who even when he seems naïf, examined phenomena with his own eyes and with notable sharpness. Delving into the “crooked narrow cranies & restrayned flexuous rivolets of corporeal things” was, he insisted, a “difficult & spiny affaire;” he was eager to avoid “meer Chymeras and wild paradoxes,” hoped that “by strong abstraction, and by deep retirement into the closet of judgment” he might win “a favourable doom” from his readers. There is no naïveté so dangerous as that of underestimating the power of another man’s mind. Behind some of his fanciful suggestions there is an astonishing agility of conjecture. On the subject of physiology he is delicious. Hear him (pared down to stark brevity) on the brain:--
We may take notice that it containeth, towards the middle of its substance, four concavities, as some do count them: but in truth, these four, are but one great concavity, in which four, as it were, divers roomes, may be distinguished.... Now, two rooms of this great concavity, are divided by a little body, somewhat like a skin, (though more fryable) which of itself is clear; but there it is somewhat dimmed, by reason that hanging a little slack, it somewhat shriveleth together: and this, Anatomists do call _Septum lucidum_, or speculum....
This part seemeth to me, to be that and onely that, in which the fansie or common sense resideth ... it is seated in the very hollow of the brain; which of necessity must be the place and receptacle where the species and similitudes of things doe reside, and where they are moved and tumbled up and down, when we think of many things. And lastly, the situation we put our head in, when we think earnestly of any thing, favoureth this opinion: for then we hang our head forwards, as it were forcing the specieses to settle towards our forehead, that from thence they may rebound, and work upon this diaphanous substance.
But it is in the Second Treatise (“Declaring the Nature and Operations of Mans Soul; out of which, The Immortality of Reasonable Souls, is Convinced”) that the darling man rises to really dazzling heights. In this mystical, ecstatic and penitential essay he (in Burton’s phrase) rectifies his perturbations. He is no longer channeled in the “crooked narrow cranies of corporeal things;” he works from withinward and spirals in happy ether:--
To thee then my soul, I now address my speech. For since by long debate, and toilsom rowing against the impetuous tides of ignorance, and false apprehensions, which overthrow thy banks, and hurry thee headlong down the stream, whiles thou art imprisoned in thy clayie mansion; we have with much ado arrived to aim at some little attome of thy vast greatness; and with the hard and tough blows of strict and wary reasoning, we have strucken out some few sparks of that glorious light, which invironeth and swelleth thee: it is high time, I should retire my self out of the turbulent and slippery field of eager strife and litigious disputation, to make my accounts with thee; where no outward noise may distract us, nor any way intermeddle between us, excepting onely that eternal verity, which by thee shineth upon my faint and gloomy eyes.... Existence is that which comprehendeth all things: and if God be not comprehended in it, thereby it is, that he is incomprehensible of us: and he is not comprehended in it, because himself is it.... Which way soever I look, I lose my sight, in seeing an infinity round about me: Length without points: Breadth without Lines: Depth without any surface. All content, all pleasure, all restless rest, all an unquietness and transport of delight, all an extasie of fruition.
So don’t let any one tell you that Sir Kenelm was only a seventeenth century epicure and bootlegger.
[Illustration]
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AN AMIABLE VISITOR
We thought of telling you about the things that most interested a British friend of ours during the first hours of his first visit to this country.
Perhaps first of all we should give you an inkling of what kind of chap he is. He’s a Welshman, an Oxford man, served in the war as a captain in the Highland Light Infantry, was awarded the Military Cross, is now in the wholesale tobacco business, is an ardent reader, and we daren’t mention his name. He’s over here to study conditions in the world of tobacco.
We went down the bay and boarded the _Baltic_ in the Narrows. We stood with our friend on what a landsman might call the roof while the ship came up the harbour. We pointed out Liberty, as she emerged from the sunlit wintry haze. At first glimpse, coming in from sea, she has rather a forbidding mien--her gesture seems one of warning. Then, as you come nearer, she seems to be holding up a cocktail shaker. But we promised to give our friend’s impressions, not our own.
The first things he wanted to have pointed out to him were the Woolworth Tower and the Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn engaged his fancy more than the Jersey shore--probably on account of the Walt Whitman tradition. “I have rather a feeling for Whitman,” he said. He was quiet as we passed the long profile of downtown skyscrapers, but we saw that he was inwardly meditating. He wanted to know about all the water tanks on top of the buildings, especially on the Jersey side. “You people seem very keen about water,” he said. He was hugely pleased with the way the tugs got the _Baltic_ into her berth.
He wondered whether, before landing, we had better dispose of a little toddy he had in his pocket flask. He had heard that if any usquebaugh were found, the officials would confiscate the flask. We agreed that it would be better not to take any chances on this matter. He was greatly surprised and delighted with the rapidity and courtesy of the customs examination. We got away from the pier with no more trouble, he said, than we would have had in arriving at a railway terminal in London.
We took a taxi, bound for Penn. Station, and then decided to prolong the ride by going down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square, and up again. He remarked that the street paving near the docks was no better than it is in Liverpool. He was charmed by the chauffeur’s air of camaraderie. The latter, hearing through the open window that this was an exploring expedition, began offering most friendly suggestions as to nice long rides we might take, to Central Park, for instance. “Take him to see the skaters, he’ll enjoy that,” said the chauffeur. This friendly informality on the part of brakemen, soda jerkers, cab drivers, ticket choppers, shop girls, and all such public servants delighted him.
Madison Square appealed to him, for he is an admirer of O. Henry. “That’s where the old tramps sit on the benches, isn’t it?” he said. He was anxious to see a “surface car,” for he had read about them in _The Four Million_. The L did not seem to interest him so much. In a drug store, he was excited by the little whirling instrument that mixed our “frosted chocolate.” The lighting, spaciousness, and attractive display in the department stores tickled him. The Penn. Station gave him extraordinary pleasure. Chiefly, we thought, he was struck by a general spaciousness and lack of hurry everywhere, in the traffic, in the shops, etc. When we asked him what he wanted to see, he said, “I want to see some of you _hustling_.” We looked everywhere, but could find no one hustling. Like a candid observer, however, he noticed one thing which is not beneath the attention of any student of human manners. “Your people have rather a fine line in legs,” he said.
We pointed proudly to the Public Library (but could not bear to tell him that the City has again cut its appropriation for buying new books). He praised the large windows at the backs of the taxicabs, making it possible to see what was going on behind the car. In Madison Square he was particularly delighted by Diana, who seemed just then to be aiming her gilded arrow at the pale, low-swimming daylight moon. He asked us whether we thought he should subscribe to the _Saturday Evening Post_ and the _Literary Digest_. Both these journals, in some way or other, had come prominently to his attention at his home in Cheshire. _Harper’s_ and _The Century_, he said, he frequently reads.
He thought it was a bit unfair of the advertisers (this was in the Long Island train) to take advantage of public attention by issuing a card with the announcement NOTICE TO PASSENGERS, looking very like official information, which turned out to be a chewing gum ad. We told him about the card in the subway which says PASSENGERS CHANGE HERE and then adds “to ---- Union Suits.” This amused him, but we could see that he didn’t think it quite sporting. He was highly diverted by the little signs at the subway ticket booths--_Sing Out How Many_ and _The Voice with the Smile Wins_. He was quite startled to learn that the author of Trivia (one of his favourite books) is an American. He was pleased by the informality of the Long Island conductor, who, seeing a lady friend among the passengers, sat down with her between stations and had a social chat.
Standing at the front of a subway train as it roared through the tunnel from Brooklyn seemed to give him innocent happiness. Again he commented, in the downtown region, on the general air of order and good management in the conduct of the traffic. He could see none of the brutal scurry that he had been taught to expect. Going up the Woolworth Tower was the greatest adventure of these few hours. This, we think, he will not soon forget. He was greatly pleased, being himself a householder, with the American kitchen. He thought it very well planned. Jericho cider he praised without reserve. A revolving apparatus for airing clothes in the back garden pleased him mightily. Delightful fellow, blessings upon him!
It is visits such as his that add to the stock of true international understanding.
[Illustration]
IN HONOREM: MARTHA WASHINGTON
An American figure of national consequence has passed away from the scene of her many glories. We refer to Martha Washington, the Independence Hall cat.
When we worked in the old Philadelphia _Ledger_ office, and paragraphs were scarce, we had an unfailing recourse. We would go over to the State House (as they call it in its home town), descend to the cool delightful old cellar underneath the hall, and call on Fred Eckersberg, the engineer. We would see Martha sleeking herself on the flagstones by the cellar steps (she was the blackest cat we ever knew, giving off an almost purple lustre in hot sunlight) or perhaps we would have to search her out among the coal bins where she was fixing a layette for the next batch of kittens. In any case, Martha having been duly admired, Fred Eckersberg would gladly talk about her and tell us what were the latest adventures of her historic life. Which was always good copy, for Fred, having been on friendly terms with Philadelphia reporters for many years, knew the kind of anecdotes that would please them. One of Fred’s unconscious triumphs was the time he told us of his perplexity about ringing in the New Year in the Independence Hall belfry. It was about Christmas time, 1919. “Last January,” he said, “I rang One-Nine-One-Nine to welcome in the New Year. But what am I going to do this time? How can I ring One-Nine-Two-Nought?” We told him we saw no way out of it but to start early in the afternoon of New Year’s Eve and ring the whole One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty tolls.
We could say a good deal about Martha Washington: her kittens are surely the most noble in the land, charter members of the Colonial Felines of America, all born in the Hall, directly underneath the lobby where the Bell stands. When the most famous brood of all were swaddled, four fine jetty daughters born in November, 1918, Fred christened them Victory, Freedom, Liberty, and Independence. He paid us the greatest compliment of our life by offering us Victory, but at that time we were living in a small apartment in the city and we didn’t think it would be a sufficiently dignified home for such a kitten, who deserved nothing less than a residence on the Main Line (Oh, Philadelphia!), with scrapple made on the premises.