Dickens's England: Life in Victorian Times
Page 32
George Eliot, Middlemarch (1872)
ITALY AND ART
‘In Italy is she really,’ said Flora, ‘with the grapes and figs growing everywhere and lava necklaces and bracelets too that land of poetry with burning mountains picturesque beyond belief though if the organ-boys come away from the neighbourhood not to be scorched nobody can wonder being so young and bringing their white mice with them most humane, and is she really in that favoured land with nothing but blue about her and dying gladiators and Belvederes though Mr F. himself did not believe for his objection when in spirits was that the images could not be true there being no medium between expensive quantities of linen badly got up and all in creases and none whatever, which certainly does not seem probable though perhaps in consequence of the extremes of rich and poor which may account for it.’
Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit (1857)
THE CHURCH ON WHICH THE SUN NEVER SETS
From Greenland’s icy mountains,
From India’s coral strand,
Where Afric’s sunny fountains
Roll down the golden sand,
From many an ancient river,
From many a palmy plain,
They call us to deliver
Their land from error’s chain.
What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle,
Though every prospect pleases
And only man is vile,
In vain with lavish kindness
The gifts of God are strown,
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone.
Can we, whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high,
Can we to men benighted
The lamp of life deny?
Salvation! Oh, salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim,
Till each remotest nation
Has learnt Messiah’s name.
Waft, waft, ye winds, His story,
And you, ye waters, roll,
Till like a sea of glory,
He spreads from pole to pole;
Till o’er our ransomed nature
The Lamb for sinners slain,
Redeemer, King, Creator,
In bliss returns to reign.
Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta (1819)
THE BIBLE AND BUSINESS
Sending the Gospel to the heathen must, if this view be correct, include much more than is implied in the usual picture of the missionary, namely, a man going about with a Bible under his arm. The promotion of commerce ought to be specially attended to, as this, more speedily than anything else, demolishes that sense of isolation which heathenism engenders, and makes the tribes feel themselves mutually dependent on, and mutually beneficial to each other. . . . My observations on this subject make me extremely desirous to promote the preparation of the raw materials of European manufacture in Africa, for by that means we may not only put a stop to the slave-trade, but introduce the negro family into the body corporate of nations, no member of which can suffer without the others suffering with it. Success in this, in both Eastern and Western Africa, would lead, in the course of time, to a much larger diffusion of the blessings of civilization than efforts exclusively spiritual and educational confined to any one small tribe.
David Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (1857)
ARAB SLAVERS’ PROPERTY
I once saw a party of twelve who had been slaves in their own country – Lunda or Londa [in Angola], of which Cazembe is chief or general. They were loaded with large, heavy wooden yokes, which are forked trees about three inches in diameter and seven or eight feet long. The neck is inserted in the fork, and an iron bar driven in across from one end of the fork to the other, and riveted; the other end is tied at night to a tree or to the ceiling of a hut, and the neck being firm in the fork, the slave is held off from loosing it. It is excessively troublesome to the wearer; and when marching, two yokes are tied together by their free ends, and loads put on the slaves’ heads besides. Women, having in addition to the yoke and load a child on the back, have said to me in passing, ‘They are killing me; if they would take off the yoke I could manage the load and child, but I shall die with three loads.’ One who spoke thus did die, and the poor little girl, her child, perished of starvation. I interceded for some; but, when unyoked, off they bounded into the long grass, and I was gently blamed for not caring to preserve the owner’s property. After a day’s march under a broiling vertical sun, with yokes and heavy loads, the strongest are exhausted. The party of twelve above mentioned were sitting singing and laughing. ‘Hallo!’ said I, ‘these fellows take to it kindly; this must be the class for whom philosophers say slavery is the natural state,’ and I went and asked the cause of their mirth. I had to ask the aid of their owner as to the meaning of the word rukha, which usually means to fly or to leap. They were using it to express the idea of haunting, as a ghost, and inflicting disease and death; and the song was, ‘Yes, we are going away to Manga (abroad, or white man’s land) with yokes on our necks; but we shall have no yokes in death, and we shall return to haunt and kill you.’ . . . In accordance with African belief, they had no doubt of being soon able, by ghost power, to kill . . .
David Livingstone, Letter (1872)
AFRICAN MEMORIES
To very many here, perhaps, African names have no interest, but to those who have travelled in Africa each name brings a recollection – each word has a distinct meaning; sometimes the recollections are pleasing, sometimes bitter. If I mention Ujiji, that little port in the Tanganyika almost hidden by palm groves, with the restless plangent surf rolling over the sandy beach, it is recalled as vividly to my mind as if I stood on that hilltop looking down upon it, and where, a few minutes later, I met the illustrious Livingstone. If I think of Unyanyembe, naturally I recollect the fretful, peevish and impatient life I led there, until I summoned courage, collected my men, and marched to the south to see Livingstone or to die. If I think of Ukonongo, recollections of our rapid marches, of famine, of hot suns, of surprises of enemies, and mutiny among my men, of feeding upon wild fruit, and of a desperate rush into a jungle. If I think of Ukawendi, I see a glorious land of lovely valleys, and green mountains, and forests of tall trees; the march under their twilight shades, and the exuberant chant of my people as we gaily tramped towards the north. If I think of Southern Urinza, I see mountains of haematite of iron – I see enormous masses of disintegrated rock, great chasms, deep ravines, a bleakness and desolation as of death. If I think of the Malagarazi, I can see the river, with its fatal reptiles and snorting hippopotami; I can see the salt plains stretching on either side; and if I think of Ulsha, recollections of the many trials we underwent, of the turbulent, contumacious villages, the preparations for battle, the alarm, and the happy escape, culminating in the happy meeting with Livingstone. There, in that open square, surrounded by hundreds of curious natives, stands the worn-out, pale-faced, grey-bearded and bent form of my great companion. There stand the sullen-eyed Arabs in their snowy dresses, girdled, stroking their long beards, wondering why I came. There stand the Wajiji, children of the Tanganyika, side by side with the Wanyamwezi, with the fierce and turbulent Warundi, with Livingstone and myself in the centre. Yes, I note it all, with the sunlight falling softly on the picturesque scene. I hear the low murmur of the surf, the rustling of the palm branches. I note the hush that has crept over the multitude as we clasp hands.
Henry Stanley, ‘Address to the British Association’ (1872)
EYES ON AFRICA
‘You find me, my dears,’ said Mrs Jellyby, snuffing the two great office candles in tin candlesticks which made the room taste strongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing in the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), ‘you find me, my dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in correspondence with public bodies, and with private individua
ls anxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger.’
As Ada said nothing, but looked at me, I said it must be very gratifying.
‘It is gratifying,’ said Mrs Jellyby. ‘It involves the devotion of all my energies, such as they are; but that is nothing, so that it succeeds; and I am more confident of success every day. Do you know, Miss Summerson, I almost wonder that you never turned your thoughts to Africa.’
This application of the subject was really so unexpected to me, that I was quite at a loss how to receive it. I hinted that the climate –
‘The finest climate in the world!’ said Mrs Jellyby.
‘Indeed, ma’am?’
‘Certainly. With precaution,’ said Mrs Jellyby. ‘You may go into Holborn, without precaution, and be run over. You may go into Holborn, with precaution, and never be run over. Just so with Africa.’
I said, ‘No doubt.’ – I meant as to Holborn.
‘If you would like,’ said Mrs Jellyby, putting a number of papers towards us, ‘to look over some remarks on that head, and on the general subject (which have been extensively circulated), while I finish a letter I am now dictating – to my eldest daughter, who is my amanuensis . . . Where are you, Caddy?’
‘“Presents her compliments to Mr Swallow, and begs –”’ said Caddy.
‘“And begs”,’ said Mrs Jellyby, dictating, ‘“to inform him, in reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project” – No, Peepy! Not on any account!’
Peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen downstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting himself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity most – the bruises or the dirt. Mrs Jellyby merely added, with the serene composure with which she did everything, ‘Go along, you naughty Peepy!’ and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again.
Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853)
ORIENTAL VISIONS
Southern Asia, in general, is the seat of awful images and associations. As the cradle of the human race, if on no other ground, it would alone have a dim, reverential feeling connected with it. But there are other reasons. No man can pretend that the wild, barbarous and capricious superstitions of Africa, or of savage tribes elsewhere, affect him in the way that he is affected by the ancient, monumental and elaborate religions of Hindustan. The mere antiquity of Asiatic things, of their institutions, histories, above all, of their mythologies, etc., is so impressive, that to me the vast age of the race and name overpowers the sense of youth in the individual. A young Chinese seems to me an antediluvian man renewed. Even Englishmen, though not bred in any knowledge of such institutions, cannot but shudder at the mystic sublimity of castes that have flowed apart, and refused to mix, through such immemorial tracts of time . . . South-eastern Asia is, and has been for thousands of years, the part of the earth most swarming with human life . . . Man is a weed in those regions. . . . All this, and much more than I can say, the reader must enter into, before he can comprehend the unimaginable horror which these dreams of Oriental imagery and mythological tortures impressed upon me. Under the connecting feeling of tropical heat and vertical sunlights, I brought together all creatures . . . and assembled them together in China or Hindustan. From kindred feelings, I soon brought Egypt and her gods under the same law . . . I fled from the walk of Bramah through all the forests of Asia; Vishnu hated me; Shiva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris . . . I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by crocodiles, and was laid, confounded with all unutterable abortions, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud.
Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821)
FROM ‘LINES TO A LADY ON HER DEPARTURE FOR INDIA’
Go where the waves run rather Holborn-hilly,
And tempests make a soda-water sea,
Almost as rough as our rough Piccadilly,
And think of me! . . .
Go where the Tiger in the darkness prowleth,
Making a midnight meal of he and she,
Go where the Lion in his hunger howleth,
And think of me!
Go where the serpent dangerously coileth,
Or lies along at full length like a tree,
Go where the Suttee in her own soot broileth,
And think of me!
Go to the land of muslin and nankeening, [nankeen cotton]
And parasols of straw where hats should be,
Go to the land of slaves and palankeening, [covered litter]
And think of me!
Go to the land of Jungle and of vast hills,
And tall bamboos – may none bamboozle thee!
Go gaze upon their Elephants and Castles,
And think of me!
Go where a cook must always be a currier,
And parch the peppered palate like a pea,
Go where the fierce mosquito is a worrier,
And think of me!
Go where the maiden on a marriage plan goes,
Consigned for wedlock to Calcutta’s quay,
Where woman goes for mart, the same as mangoes,
And think of me! . . .
Thomas Hood, early nineteenth century
THE EXPENSES
Another young lady of twenty-four, very weak and delicate; her husband is in the Punjab (£6,000 of salary, £1,200 for the expenses of his establishment); she has been for two years in Europe with an affection of the throat, which will return as soon as she returns to India; four young children; they are sent to Europe before they are two years old; the Indian climate kills them; there are here entire boarding schools here recruited by these little Anglo-Indians.
Hippolyte Taine (trans. W.F. Rae), Notes on England (1872)
BEWARE THE WILY ORIENTAL
At the College at Haileybury, about 90 gentlemen between the ages of 17 and 20 are instructed in the oriental languages, in the principles of morals, law, logic, and jurisprudence, and are fitted for the high requirements of the civil service in India. . . . The training he receives is of the character that will best enable him to cope with the subtlety of the Hindu intellect, to track the process of intrigue in the courts of native princes – and to make himself familiar with all the phases of the Oriental vices of deceit, dissimulation and treachery. To do this efficiently, presupposes no inconsiderable acquaintance with the springs of human action, the laws of the human mind, and the workings of the human heart. These subjects form a portion of the study at Haileybury.
Anon., ‘An Account of the East India Company’s Colleges at Haileybury and Addiscombe’, The Times (1849)
TIPPOO’S TIGER
[Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum]
January 14th, 1828
To see the India House, where there are many remarkable curiosities. Among them is Tippoo Sahib’s dream-book . . . his armour, a part of his golden throne, and an odd sort of barrel-organ, are also preserved here. The latter is concealed in the belly of a very well-represented metal tiger, of natural colours and size. Under the tiger lies an Englishman in scarlet uniform, whom he is tearing to pieces; and by turning the handle, the cries and moans of a man in the agonies of death, terrifically interspersed with the roaring and growling of the tiger, are imitated with great truth.