Philip Van Doren Stern (ed)

by Travelers In Time

  "Very interesting," I said. "I should like a glimpse of an alternative world of that kind."

  "Nothing is easier," said the stranger. "Choose any epoch you like and I will take you there."

  "Well," I said, "I should like to see what would have happened in the period I am reading about, supposing Napoleon had entered the British Navy instead of the French Army."

  "Nothing is easier," said the stranger. "You shall have two peeps into that world between 1800 and 1850. Come along."

  I felt dazed for a moment, but only for a moment, and when I recovered from this fleeting flash of unconsciousness I found myself wide awake. I was sitting on a verandah; in front of me was a sea-coast, against which large grey breakers were rolling; behind me sashed windows which reached to the ground opened on to a parlour; and something touched a cell or struck a note in my memory which made me think of Miss Austen's novels, of Cranford, and of the breakfast room in a country house where I had once stayed in my childhood. Was it a faint smell of lavender that came from indoors, or the taste of the saffron bun I had just eaten, for I had just taken a bite from a saffron bun, or the elder-flower wine that I was sipping, or the picture of King George on the wall I could see over the chimney piece of the room beyond the verandah? I don't know.

  That parlour was bare, and might have belonged to almost any epoch. It was slightly damp. I knew that I was not in Europe, although there was nothing extra-European either behind or before me. I was talking to a man, who, although he was dressed in nankeen, had something indefinably maritime about him. He was middle-aged, with a tawny beard streaked with grey hairs, and his face was tanned and worn by exposure; there was nothing rough, bluff, or hearty about him, but, on the contrary, an air of gentle and slightly melancholy refinement. He was smoking a pipe, and after taking a puff or two in silence, he took up the thread of his discourse again. I was certain that the conversation was being continued and not being begun, and I felt quite satisfied when my quiet interlocutor said:

  "Yes, that was her first cruise." It seemed the natural, inevitable thing for him to say.

  At that moment a fat, sallow, dark-haired man, dressed in nankeen and wearing a broad panama hat, strolled along the beach in front of us, whistling to himself a tune which I seemed to have heard before.

  "Who's that?" I asked.

  "That's the Captain," said my host. "He's-------- " He touched his

  forehead meaningly. "Mad?" asked I.

  "No, not mad, but queer," said my host. "Has illusions—thinks he's King of England one day and Emperor of India the next. A curious career his as ever man had. His real name is Bonnypart, though he now goes by the name of Jackson, and his father, so they say, was an Italian skipper in one of the French colonial islands. He was anxious for his son to have a good education, so he sent him to England to be naturalized as an Englishman and to serve King George in the British Navy. The lad was partial to learning and took to the sea like a duck takes to water, and all went well till the French Jacobites declared war on us a second time in 1805. He was already a Captain then, promotion in those times being speedy. He disobeyed orders when the fleet was pursuing Admiral Villeneuve, and some say it was thanks to his breach of discipline that the fleet was not destroyed at Trafalgar. Be that as it may, the Admiralty had a black mark against his name from that moment, and he was warned that he had got off lightly the first time, owing to the victory and to Admiral Nelson's intercession; Admiral Nelson saying that he had no use for the man who did not know how to obey orders at the right moment (but that did not please their Lordships). But shortly after the battle he was accused of cheating at cards, whether rightly or wrongly I don't know, but I have seen men who have been shipmates with him who said that never had they seen a man with a quicker brain for business and a slower head for cards; that there was no game he could master, and he cheated for very weariness, and neither for love of gain nor gambling. This time he was court-martialled, found guilty and dismissed from the service. Admiral Nelson could no longer intercede for him, for the Admiral himself had been superseded owing to the newspaper clamour which arose over his handling of the fleet at Trafalgar. Bonnypart changed his name to Jackson, and enlisted as a soldier in Wellesley's Army. He fought against the French Republic in Germany, and on the Eastern frontier against the Russians, and after a year or two he was given a commission. After the French Jacobites were defeated by the Germans and the Russians in 1814, he was once more promoted to the rank of Captain. This time he came into collision with Wellesley, now Lord Wellington. When the Allies occupied Paris, the Duke declared he would go out fox-hunting in the Forest of Fontainebleau, and Captain Jackson, being a poor rider, and having foreign blood in him and consequently no feeling for the sport, jeered openly at Wellington's intention. News of this got round to the General, who ordered Jackson to go out hunting with him the next day. Jackson did; but he shot the fox dead in the middle of a spanking run, and all but hit the General into the bargain. When he was had up before his Commanding Officer he answered with great insolence, and he was cashiered for insubordination. Being a restless fellow, he thought he would take service with the French or the Italians, and went to his old home, Sardinia or Elba. In 1815, when General Murat turned out the French King, Jackson enlisted in the French Navy, and the vessel he was in was captured not far from this island of St. Helena by a British frigate just before peace was made in 1815. He was imprisoned here as a deserter, and would have been tried for his life, but by this time the illusions which some say had been simmering in him for a long time, aggravated by a blow on the head which he had received in the scrap at sea, got the better of him, and the doctors said he was not responsible for his actions. They kept him shut up in the hospital here at Longwood, but after a while the doctor, finding he was harmless, let him have the run of the island. Harmless he is, too, although there is a warder called Hudson who has an eye on him. You can see him now, behind that tree, some thirty yards behind the Captain. The Captain often stops to spin a yam with me, and he is pleasant spoken and knowledgeable too about seamanship and the weather, and he has only one or two delusions. One is that he is King of England, and the other that he can play cribbage, which he cannot do without cheating, but we keep cards out of his way lest they should upset him.

  "Would you like to speak with him?" said my host. "He is coming this way."

  I said I would be delighted to, and, as Captain Jackson walked towards the house where we were sitting, my host rose and beckoned to him.

  Captain Jackson had a remarkable face, remarkable for its extreme pallor, and for the brilliance of his penetrating eyes. He looked me up and down, and then asked in an abrupt way:

  "Oxford or Cambridge?"

  I felt embarrassed by his abruptness, but managed to get the word Oxford across my lips.

  "What college?" he asked. "Balliol, I suppose." And without waiting for an answer he said: "What are you studying?"

  I said: "History."

  "Bah," he said, "they can't teach history at Oxford. There are only two places where you can learn history. One is the Navy and the other the Army, and both of them in times of war."

  Upon which he took a pinch of snuff, turned his back, and walked quickly away.

  Up to that moment the conversation had seemed to me quite natural, as if I had belonged to the circumstances in which I suddenly found myself, as if I was a contemporary, taking part in the events of the day, but from the moment that Captain Jackson left us I seemed to be two people: the man who was on the island and who belonged to this remoter epoch, and my real twentieth-century self.

  "Did Captain Jackson fight for Napoleon?" I asked.

  "Napoleon?" said my host. "I never heard of him."

  "The Emperor of the French," I said.

  "There never was no Emperor as I ever heard of," said my host. "There was a King and they cut his head off. And then there was a Jacobite Republic which overran half Europe, spreading revolution wherever it went, in Italy, Spain, Germany, and even i
n Russia. They won victories, then they were beat. As soon as all the world made peace, they made war again and won victories again, and at last they were beat altogether, and the King came into his own."

  "Then who," I asked, "is King of France now?" BARING: THE ALTERNATIVE

  "Why, Louis XVIII, of course. And thanks to those Jacobites, of a much smaller France than belonged to his ancestors. He had to give up Alsace and half Lorraine to the Germans."

  His voice seemed to grow faint as he said this, and the scene melted. I rubbed my eyes and found that I was walking down a street, arm-in-arm with a stranger. I soon recognized the street. It was Whitehall.

  "That," said the man who was walking with me, "is the Horse Guards."

  I realized that I was being shown over London. I was possibly a stranger of distinction. My guide was floridly dressed. He wore a crimson necktie and a carbuncle pin, a yellow satin waistcoat, a large choker, a little imperial; his eyes were bright and penetrating, his manner vivacious. There was something slightly histrionic about him.

  I recognized certain familiar landmarks. The traffic, the hansom carriages, and the four-wheelers made a clatter in the street; elegant barouches passed us. The ladies wore crinolines; the men, Dundreary whiskers. I felt I had been landed into the world of Thackeray. We passed an unfamiliar statue which stood where the war memorial now stands.

  "Who is that?" I asked.

  "That," said my guide, "is the statue erected in memory of a poet who died fighting for the cause of royalty, order, and the fleur-de-lis against the hosts of anarchy and murder in France during the great Jacobin War. He was killed fighting on the barricades in Paris. He showed great promise as a writer. His name was William Wordsworth."

  Just then we passed a dignified-looking old gentleman with white hair dressed in the fashion of an earlier period. He wore a blue swallow-tailed coat, a buff nankeen waistcoat, and a fob with many seals hanging from it. He was a dignified and picturesque figure. He stooped slightly. His eyes were those of a mathematician or an inventor. There was an air of great distinction about him, not un-mingled with a whiff of scholarship. I asked my guide who he was.

  "That," he answered, "is the Conservative Member for Horsham, Sir Percy Shelley."

  "The son of the poet?" I asked.

  "Oh dear, no," said my guide. "His father was not a poet. His father was a squire, Sir Timothy Shelley. It is true that Sir Percy did write some verse as a youth, but we never refer to that now. I assure you nobody ever refers to it. Boyish peccadilloes. Very regrettable, as they were atheistic, often heathen in tone, and sometimes even licentious in character. But boys will be boys, and the young must sow their wild oats. He has amply atoned for all that. Fortunately few of those early effusions were printed, and Sir Percy was able to withdraw from circulation and to destroy every single copy of that most deplorable doggerel. Sir Percy is one of the pillars of the Conservative Party, and the speech he made against Reform and the Extension of Suffrage Bill is a classic. He is a great patriot, is Sir Percy, and he wrote some stirring words about the war which were published in The Times newspaper, and then set to music and enjoyed a wide popularity. "The refrain ran:

  We don't want to fight, But Zeus help them if we do.

  You see, Sir Percy is a classical scholar and can never resist a Greek word. He never quotes Greek in the House, but Horace is always upon his lips. Horace, as he rightly says, is so quotable." "Then he never writes now?" I asked.

  "He occasionally writes to The Times newspaper," said my guide.

  "You see," he went on, "he is a very busy man, chairman of many

  committees, and one of the most prominent members of the Conserv-

  ative Club, and on the boards of I don't know how many hospitals

  and charitable institutions. He plays a fair hand at whist, and always

  rides to the meet of the foxhounds if it is not too far off, and he is a

  sound and earnest Churchman--- "

  "Not a ritualist, I suppose?"

  "Oh, no, not a ritualist; far from it. A sound, broad Churchman; not too high and not too low. He reads the lessons on Sunday at Horsham, with much expression and fervour, although his voice is a little shrill."

  "Does he ever refer to his friendship with Lord Byron?" I asked. "They meet sometimes on State occasions." "But isn't Lord Byron dead?"

  "Dead! Dear me, no, unless he died last night. I haven't heard His Eminence was ill."

  "I thought he died at Missolonghi in 1824."

  "Oh, no; he returned from that Grecian expedition much shattered in health, and after a period of solitary reflection, which he spent in the Channel Islands, he joined the Church of Rome. He is now, of course, a Cardinal, and lives at Birmingham."

  "But his works?" I asked. "Did he suppress them?"

  "Oh dear, no, sir. He wrote a great deal, and the last cantos of Don Juan, which tell of the Don's conversion and bona mors, are reckoned to be among the most pious and edifying books of the century, by men of all religious denominations. He wrote, too, a fine sequel to Cain, called The Death of Cain, which is even more edifying, and even now he still writes hymns, some of which are popular both in the Roman, Anglican, and Evangelical Churches. Notably one which begins:

  The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold.

  "But Cardinal Byron is better known now for his sermons than for his lyrics. He preaches most eloquently, and it is worth a journey to Birmingham to hear him."

  "But who," I asked, "are the greatest contemporary poets?"

  "Well," said my guide, "undoubtedly the greatest living poet is a woman, a portentous star of the first magnitude; I am talking of the fiery, volcanic, incandescent genius of Felicia Hemans, the author of that burning rhapsody Casa Bianca. She is undoubtedly the greatest woman poet since the days of Sappho, and perhaps even more passionate. We have just lost one great poet, James Montgomery. He was the greatest, in fact the only, epic poet since the days of Gray. Then there is Benjamin Disraeli, author of so many beautiful poetical dramas. Then you have the sombre and tortured broodings of Adelaide Proctor, and the fierce, bitter, biting etchings of Jean Ingelow; in fact, it is an age of poetesses more than of poets."

  "And what about Alfred Tennyson?" I asked.

  "The brother of the poet, Frederick?" said my guide. "Poor fellow, he was killed in the war a few months ago at Balaclava; a very gallant soldier."

  "And the poet Keats," I said. "Have you heard of him?"

  "Of course," was the answer. "Who has not heard of him? It is impossible to avoid. He publishes a fresh volume of verse every year; but ever since he has lived at Torquay, where he originally settled down some thirty years ago, he has written practically nothing except about agriculture and crops and livestock. The hero of his last verse-narrative was a Shorthom. He writes too much. All very instructive, of course, and parts of it are descriptive, but he writes a great deal too much. That's just what ruined Coleridge."

  "But Coleridge is surely not alive?" I said.

  "He died," I was informed, "two or three years ago. He was eighty years old. He died of overwork. He had just finished the last book of his epic, Kubla Khan. It has fifteen books, you will remember, and it is the longest epic in the English language. His one fear was that he should die before he should complete it. As it was, he finished it just six months before his death, and he had the joy of seeing the massive work in print. It is longer than the Iliad and the Odyssey put together, and the building of it occupied the whole of the poet's life."

  "And did it meet with a satisfactory reception?" I asked.

  "Most satisfactory. One critic in the Quarterly Review even went so far—it was perhaps a little extravagant on his part—as to put it in the same rank as Southey's immortal epics."

  "Did Coleridge finish all his poems?" I asked.

  My guide seemed quite offended by this question. Offended for Coleridge and shocked at my ignorance.

  "Of course he did," he said. "Coleridge was the most hard-working and cons
cientious of writers, and, as I have already told you, he died of overwork."

  "But," I persisted, "did he ever finish Christabel?"

  My guide smiled a superior, tolerant smile.

  "Christabel," he said, "is not by Coleridge at all. It is by De Quincey."

  I gasped with astonishment. "De Quincey, the opium eater?"

  "He wrote several things of the same kind. The Albatross and The Dark Lady, all most fantastic stuff. Poor man, he was lightheaded at the last. It came from taking drugs."

  This account of the world of poetry so bewildered me that I thought I should feel on firmer ground if we passed to the domain of prose, and I asked who were considered the best novelists of the day.

  "Well," said my guide, "there has been nothing very interesting in that way just lately. Mr. Thackeray has written a most insignificant story called Vanity Fair; all about those trumpery Jacobin Wars, which interest nobody now. Mr. Carlyle wrote a spirited romance some years ago which suffered from the same fault, namely, that of dealing with a hackneyed, commonplace and dreary epoch: the Jacobin revolt. Indeed, Mr. Carlyle's work is the more tedious as it deals solely with France and with the French, and nobody now takes any interest in that country. There are, of course, a fine series of romances by Froude, and the powerful but rather morbid studies of real life by Miss Charlotte Yonge; the monumental history of Harrison Ains-worth; the fantastic short stories of Ruskin, and the almost too sprightly, too flippant satire and Puck-like wit of Herbert Spencer."

  I asked whether the influence of the French was felt in recent literature. My guide said that the influence of French literature had been negligible. Ever since the restoration of the French monarchy French literature had been pursuing an even but uninteresting course. During the prosperous and calm reign of Charles X, the most notable names in the literature of France were, as in England, nearly all those of women. There was Madame Desbordes Valmore, Madame Victor Hugo, Mademoiselle Lamartine, all of whom had written agreeable lyrics and some tuneful and melodious narrative poems. Among the male poets the most remarkable was Georges Sand. During the reign of Henry V the same pure and refined standards had been upheld, but it could not be denied that this literature, although admirable in tone, sane in its outlook, and exemplary in the lessons which it taught, did not go down across the Channel. The England of Miss Yonge and Mrs. Gaskell—those unflinching realists, those intrepid divers into the unplumbed depths and mysteries of the human soul, those undaunted and ruthless surgeons of all the secret sores of the spirit and of the flesh—was used to stronger meat, and insisted on getting it.