The Adventure of Living : a Subjective Autobiography. John St. Loe Strachey

The Adventure of Living : a Subjective Autobiography - John St. Loe Strachey


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Also he was fairly well-read in some branches of French literature and knew enough Italian to translate a quotation from Dante or from Tasso. He was also deeply read and deeply interested in Biblical criticism and in the statecraft of the Old Testament. His book on "Hebrew Politics" was hailed by theological students of liberal views as a real contribution to Biblical exegesis.

      This all sounds like the record of a scholar. Yet he was not a scholar but a man with a most active and creative interest in his own world and his own time. Politics was his master-passion in things secular, and he followed every turn of the political wheel, not merely with the interest of a spectator, but with that of a man whose heart and mind were both deeply concerned. He was a Party Liberal, and also a liberal in the very best sense, and full of the most earnest zeal for the people's cause. My only quarrel with him here—if it was a quarrel—was that in his anxiety to support what he believed to be the cause of the people he was in effect anti-democratic.

      On this point I was wont to chaff him, for there was no man with whom you could more easily argue without hurting his feelings. I would put it like this:

      You think of the people and your duty to them in too much of a grand seigneur manner for me. You seem to want to find out what they want, and then do it, whether it is right or wrong, out of a patronising sense of moral benevolence. I, on the other hand, am a true democrat because I regard myself as one of the people—a creature with just as many rights as they have. Their opinion, if it is the opinion of the majority, will of course prevail, and ought to prevail, and I shall loyally acquiesce in it. But I am not going to do what I think unwise, as you appear to think I should, because somebody has put a ticket on the back of a certain view and declared it to be the popular view. It may quite well turn out that the alleged popular view is not popular at all, but is scouted by the majority.

      That, of course, was, and was meant to be, a parody of his attitude, but it was one which he never resented, though he would not admit its nearness to the truth.

      I shall not give the supreme characteristic impression of the man if I do not tell something about his stories, and give some specimens of his table-talk, especially as I have felt very strongly, though it may be difficult to transfer the impression, that his general talk, quite apart from his example and direct teaching, had a potent influence upon my character, and so upon my life.

      To begin with, he was an ideal talker to children and young people, because, besides leisure, he had an innate kindliness and sympathy with the young which made him always anxious to put himself and his mind and heart at their disposal. He was in a perpetual mood to answer any questions, however tiresome and however often repeated. As he was a man of wide reading, of good memory, and almost an expert in many kinds of knowledge, we as children had something of that incomparable advantage for which I have always envied royalty. They are able to learn by the simple process of talking to people who know. That is not only the easiest road to knowledge, but if your teacher is no charlatan a more vivid impression is made upon the mind than is made by books.

      If you went to my father and asked him who Aurungzebe was, or Hereward the Wake, or Masaniello, or Edward Keen, or Callimachus, or Titus Oates, or Dr. Chalmers, or Saint Januarius, he would tell you at once something vivid and stimulating about each of them, something which remained in your mind. Often his answer would lead to other fascinating and delightful discoveries for the questioner. I will take a couple of examples at random. When I asked him about Masaniello, he not only told the story of the insurrection among the lazzaroni at Naples, but he launched out into accounts of his own experience of Naples in the 'forties and of the crowds of picturesque and starving beggars and banditti who in those days still infested the city and its horrible and putrescent lanes and alleys. The Naples of the Bombas, in which he had spent two or more winters, was always a delightful source of anecdote. I could fill a book with his talk about Neapolitan nobles who let two apartments in their Palaces with only one set of furniture, and of the Neapolitan boatmen who formed the crew of the boat which he kept in the Bay, for he was too great an invalid to walk. Especially did we love to hear of how he was carried up Mount Vesuvius in a "litter"—a word which he always used. It thrilled me. It seemed to make the whole scene Roman and magnificent. One thought of Pliny going to observe the great eruption, of Cicero, of Pompey, of Seneca, carried down to Baiæ in their curtained chairs. My other example is Callimachus, the Greek, or rather, Alexandrine poet of the Decadence. The mention of his name brought in its train an excellent story derived from my father's uncle, the second Sir Henry Strachey, the squire whom he succeeded at Sutton. The story runs as follows. When the said great-uncle, as a boy just come out to India, went to dine with the great Orientalist, Sir William Jones, in his house in Calcutta (circa 1793), Sir William quoted to him a couple of lines out of Callimachus' Hymn to Apollo, which he had hurled at the head of Burke when the great Whig tribune threatened that he would get him (Sir William Jones) recalled if he continued to support Warren Hastings. The lines quoted from the obscure Greek poet he translated to the young civilian, Henry Strachey. "In reply, I reminded Burke," he said, "of the lines in the Hymn to Apollo: 'The Euphrates is a noble river, but it rolls down all the dead dogs of Babylon to the sea.'"

      My father was wont to point out that, as a matter of fact, Jones's memory was not quite accurate. If you look at the Burke correspondence, you will see the dignified letter in which Jones replied to Burke. In it he makes no direct reference to the orator's threat, and only uses the first line of Callimachus, which he turns into a compliment. He is sure, he declares, that the mighty torrent of Burke's eloquence will always be used in the defence of a friend. Perhaps he thought that, if Burke looked up the passage, he would be snubbed as it were automatically.

      When, however, Jones told the story twelve years afterwards he did what we are all inclined to do in such circumstances. He imagined himself much more valiant and much more ready to take a great man by the scruff of his neck and shake him, than he really was. We are all heroes in our memories. By the way, it was Callimachus who wrote the epigram on the death of Heraclitus which was made immortal by the translation of the author of "Ionica." It is, I hold, the best poetic translation in the English tongue.

      Of the distinguished people with whom my father was personally acquainted in his earlier days, among the most memorable were Carlyle and Edward Irving. Carlyle was tutor to my father's first cousin, Charles Buller, later to be known as "the young Marcellus of the Whig Party." Of Carlyle he had many stories. Curiously enough, I might have seen Carlyle myself, for when I was about fifteen or sixteen he was still alive, and my father offered to take me to see him in Chelsea. With the cheery insolence of youth, I weighed the question in the balance and decided that I did not want to trouble myself with the generation that was passing away. I can still remember, however, that what almost moved me to accept my father's proposal was the fact that Carlyle was actually born in the 18th century, and before Keats. Edward Irving had made a vivid impression upon my father, though he only saw him, I believe, at the age of seven or eight. He could distinctly remember Irving taking him upon his knee, holding him at arm's length, looking into his face, and saying, in his deep, vibrant orator's voice: "Edward, don't ye long to be a mon?" Evidently the impression made upon my father by the words, or rather the way in which they were spoken, was profound. The incident always reminded me of that wonderful story told by Crabbe Robinson the Diarist. As a young man, Crabbe Robinson went to see one of the trials in which Erskine was engaged as Counsel. All he could remember of the speech was Erskine leaning over the jury-box and in low tones, full of meaning and tremulous with passion, uttering the commonplace words: "Gentlemen of the Jury, if you give a verdict against my client I shall leave this court a miserable man!" So profound was the influence of the orator that Crabbe Robinson tells us that for weeks afterwards he used to wake with a start in the middle of the night, saying over to himself the words: "I shall leave this court a miserable man."

      Another contemporary well known to my father was Peacock, the novelist, for Peacock was also an official in the India House and so a colleague of my grandfather, Edward Strachey.

      Of my father's religious views, though they deeply affected my own, I shall speak only very shortly. He was, above all, a devout man. Pure in heart, he earned the promised blessing and saw God throughout his days on earth. The fatherhood of God and the imminence of the Kingdom of Heaven were no empty words for him. But, though he was so single-minded a follower of Christ


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