Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

fashion. To help his friends was to him | really valued was the excitement of the so much of a pleasure, that it could not campaign: in the ardor of the fight he be a virtue.

The charge that he was ready to push his own fortunes by any means however base, seems to us to be capable of even more emphatic refutation. Thackeray says that Swift was abject to a lord. The truth is, that no man was ever more independent. The moment that Harley hurt his sense of self-respect by an injudicious gift, he broke with him. The treas urer had taken an unpardonable liberty, and must apologize. "If we let these great ministers pretend too much, there will be no governing them," he wrote to Stella. He recognized true greatness cordially wherever he found it, and real kindness subdued him at once. But the mere trappings of greatness the stars and garters and ribbons had no effect upon his imagination:

Where titles give no right or power,
And peerage is a withered flower.

He loved Oxford; he loved Bolingbroke; but he did not love them better than he loved Pope and Gay and Arbuthnot. He left Somers and Halifax when he thought they were playing the Church false; but the Tory chiefs who had been kind to him, though one was in exile and the other in the Tower, were never mentioned by him without emotion. He offered to share Oxford's imprisonment; and nothing would induce him to bow the knee to Walpole. He was anxious, indeed, to obtain promotion; he would have been well pleased if his friends had made him a bishop; but the anxiety was quite natural. If there had been any show of neglect, if the men for whom he had fought so gallantly had affected to underrate his services and to overlook his claims, his self-respect would have been wounded. The feeling was precisely similar to that of the soldier who fails to receive the ribbon or the medal which he has earned.

But Swift was not greedy either of riches or of fame, so long as he was able to keep the wolf from the door, the most modest competence was all that he asked. He had none of the irritable vanity of the author; all his works were published anonymously; and he manifested a curious indifference to that posthumous reputation "the echo of a hollow vault " which is so eagerly and vainly prized by aspiring mortals. Nor did he give a thought to the money value of his workPope, Mrs. Barber, the booksellers, might have it, and welcome. What he

[ocr errors]

sought and found compensation. "A person of great honor in Ireland used to tell me that my mind was like a conjured spirit, that would do mischief if I would not give it employment." And he says elsewhere, "I myself was never very miserable while my thoughts were in a ferment, for I imagine a dead calm is the troublesomest part of our voyage through the world." These and similar avowals are very characteristic. The cool poetic woodland was not for this man. He could not go and lie down on the grass, and listen to the birds, and be happy like his innocent rustics. One may pity him, but censure surely is stupidly unjust. Not only were his faculties in finest working order at the supreme and critical juncture, when the fortune of battle was poised in the balance, but the noise of the guns and the shouts of the combatants drove away the evil spirit which haunted him. Absorbed in the great game, he forgot himself and the misery which at times was well-nigh intolerable. For all his life a dark shadow hung over him, and only when drinking "delight of battle with his peers "might he escape into the sunshine. It must never be forgotten that Swift suffered not merely from almost constant bodily dis comfort, but from those dismal forebodings of mental decay which are even more trying than the reality.

We need not wonder that such a man should have been cynical. The profound melancholy of his later years was unrelieved by any break of light; but even in his gayest time the gloom must have been often excessive. The scorn of fools,

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

Alas! it hurt himself as much as, or even more than, the fools and sinners; so that at the end, when his hand had lost its cunning, as he thought, and the curtain was about to drop, he entreated Pope to give them one more lash at his request. "Life is not a farce," he adds, "it is a ridiculous tragedy, which is the worst kind of composition;" and then (it belongs to the same period, and certainly shows no failure of power) he proceeds to

draw that tremendous picture of the day | coarseness of much that he wrote is likewise symptomatic of disease. But, as we have said, it is unfair to judge him by the incidents of his closing years. The profound misanthropy grew upon him. At first it was clearness of vision,

of judgment, which, if he had left nothing more, would alone prove to us that Swift's intense satirical imagination was of the highest order:

While each pale sinner hung his head,

Jove, nodding, shook the heavens and said,
Offending race of human kind,

...

By reason, nature, learning, blind,
You who through frailty step'd aside,
And you who never fell-through pride;
You who in different sects were shamm'd,
And come to see each other damn'd
(So some folks told you, but they knew
No more of Jove's designs than you),
The world's mad business now is o'er,
And I resent these pranks no more.
I to such blockheads set my wit!
I damn such fools! - Go, go, you're bit."

at last it was bitterness of soul. But it did not overpower him till he had passed middle life, till his ambition had been foiled, till he had been driven into exile, till Stella was dead, till he was tortured by almost constant pain, till the shadows of a yet deeper darkness were closing round him.

The story of Swift's relations with Stella and Vanessa is one of those somewhat mysterious episodes in literary history which continue to baffle criticism. The undisputed facts are briefly these: that Swift became acquainted with_Esther Johnson (Stella) at Sir William Temple's; that he directed the girl's studies; that a romantic friendship sprang up between them; that soon after Sir William's death she went, on Swift's advice, to reside in Ireland, where she had a small estate, and where living was relatively cheaper than in England; that though they always lived apart, the early attachment became closer and more intimate; that about 1708 he was introduced to the Vanhomrigh family in London; that Hester Vanhomrigh (Vanessa) fell violently in love with him; that she followed him to Ireland; that she died in 1723, soon after

Strange as it may appear to some, the man who wrote these terrible lines was a man whose heart was intensely sensitive, whose affections were morbidly acute, who could not bear to see his friends in pain. His cynicism melted into pity at a word. "I hate life," he exclaims, when he hears that Lady Ashburnham is dead, "I hate life, when I think it exposed to such accidents; and to see so many wretches burdening the earth, when such as her die, makes me think God did never intend life to be a blessing." Little Harrison, in whom he had interested himself, is taken dangerously ill, and he has not the courage to knock at the "poor lad's "a passionate scene with the man she door to inquire. "I told Parnell I was afraid to knock at the door; my mind misgave me. I knocked, and his man in tears told me his master was dead an hour before. Think what grief this is to me! I did not dine with Lord Treasurer, or anywhere else, but got a bit of meat towards evening." When the letter came telling him that Gay was dead, he knew by instinct -"an impulse forboding some misfortune what it contained, and could not open it for days. And when Stella was ill, his anguish was greater than he could bear. What am I to do in this world? I am able to hold up my sorry head no longer."

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

66

And yet at times it cannot be denied Swift could be simply brutal. When his passion was roused he was merciless. He struck out like a blind man - in a sort of frantic rage. He raved he stormed - he lost self-control - he was taken possession of by his devil. The demoniac element was at times strong in Swift: somewhere or other in that mighty mind there was a congenital flaw which no medicine could heal. The lamentable

loved; and that Stella died in 1728, and was buried in the cathedral — close to the grave where the dean was afterwards laid. These are the bare facts, which have been very variously construed by critics, and of which we now proceed to offer the explanation which appears to fit them most nearly. But, in doing so, it is necessary to dismiss at the outset the common assumption that relations of close friendship between a man and woman are abnormal and unaccountable unless they end in marriage. What we assert is, that the devotion of Swift to Esther Johnson was the devotion of friendship, not of love; and that from this point of view only does the riddle admit of even approximate solution.

Swift, as we have seen, had resolved early in life that no temptation would induce him to barter his independence. With the object of securing a modest competence, he practised the most rigid economy. He had no fortune of his own, and his beggarly Irish livings afforded him at most a bare subsistence. A heavy burden of debt- more than a thousand

Esther Johnson, the only child who up to that time had come very close to him, was then just leaving her childhood behind her - she was seventeen years old. The delicate girl had matured or was maturing into a bright and charming woman. It is admitted on all hands that Stella was worthy of Swift's indeed of any man's

says Swift. In society she was much esteemed; she had a touch of Addison's courteous and caressing manner, though later on, among her Irish friends, she rose to be a sort of queen, and became possibly a little peremptory and dictato rial. But she seems at all times (in spite of a brief fit of jealous passion now and again) to have been a true, honest, soundhearted, modest woman. She herself attributes her superiority to the common foibles of her sex to Swift's early influence; and in one of the latest birthday poems he sent her, he does ample justice to her candor, her generosity, and her courage: —

pounds attached to the deanery on his the curious paper of 1699, "When I come appointment. Thus he was growing old to be old," was, "not to be fond of chilbefore, with the views which he enter-dren, or let them come near me hardly." tained, he was in a position to marry. And he was not a man to whom "love in a cottage" could have offered any attractions. "He is covetous as hell, and ambitious as the prince of it," he said of Marlborough. Swift was not mercenary as the duke was mercenary; but the last infirmity of noble minds was probably his ruling passion. The oracle of a country-regard. She had great good sense; town, tied to a dull and exacting wife, he her conversation was keen and sprightly; would have fretted himself to death in a and though latterly inclining to stoutness, year. He needed the pressure of action her figure was then extremely fine. The to prevent him from growing gloomy and face was somewhat pale; but the pallor morose. Nor was mere irritability, or served to heighten the effect of her brileven the sava indignatio, the worst that liantly dark eyes and unusually black hair. he had to apprehend. His health was "Hair of a raven black," says Mrs. Delaindifferent; he suffered much from deaf-ney; "Her hair was blacker than a raven," ness and giddiness, caused, it is asserted, by some early imprudence, a surfeit of ripe fruit or the like, but more or less closely connected, it is probable, with the mental disease which seems to have run in the family his uncle Godwin having died in a madhouse. "I shall be like that tree," he is reported to have said many years before his own death, pointing to an elm whose upper branches had been withered by lightning; "I shall die at the top." Even in early manhood he had confessed that he was of a "cold temper;" and he spoke of love the absurd passion of play-books and romances only to ridicule it. His opinion of marriage, in so far as he himself was interested, may be gathered from a letter written when he was five-and-twenty: "The very ordinary observations I made without going half a mile from the university, have taught me experience enough not to think of marriage till I settle my fortune in the world, which I'am sure will not be in some years; and even then I am so hard to please myself, that I suppose I shall put it off to the next world." This may have been said partly in jest; but a man so situated, and with such antecedents, may very reasonably have asked himself whether he was entitled to marry. Friendship, on the other hand, was a noble emotion; he never wearies of singing its praise. And he acted up to his persuasion: if Swift was a bitter foe, he was at least a constant and magnanimous friend.

Yet, by some curious perversity, the man to whom love was a by-word was forced to sound the deeps and to explore the mysteries of passion.

One of Swift's resolutions, recorded in

Your generous boldness to defend
An innocent and absent friend;
That courage which can make you just
To merit humbled in the dust;
The detestation you express
For vice in all its glittering dress;
That patience under tort'ring pain,
Where stubborn Stoics would complain:
Must these like empty shadows pass,
Or forms reflected from a glass?

There can be no doubt that for Stella, Swift had a great compassion, a true tenderness. The innocent child had been, as it were, thrown upon his care; she grew up to girlhood at his side; he was her guardian, her schoolmaster, her nearest friend. But so far as he was concerned, there never was any thought of love between them, a schoolmaster might address a favorite pupil, a father a beloved child, in precisely the same language that Swift addressed to Stella. It was friendship-friendship of the closest and most endearing character, but friendship only-that united them. His tone

[ocr errors]

throughout, from first to last, was per- her health, the lines seem to us to reach a fectly consistent :

[ocr errors]

Thou, Stella, wert no longer young,
When first for thee my harp I strung,
Without one word of Cupid's darts,
Of killing eyes or bleeding hearts;
With friendship and esteem possest,
I ne'er admitted love a guest.*

very high altitude indeed:

Best pattern of true friends, beware;
You pay too dearly for your care,
If, while your tenderness secures
My life, it must endanger yours;
For such a fool was never found
Who pulled a palace to the ground,
Only to have the ruins made
Materials for a house decayed.

This was the language that he held to Tisdale in 1704, soon after Esther had gone to Ireland; this was the language How did Stella accept this lifelong he held to Stopford when she was dying. friendship, this playful homage, this tenIf he had ever thought of marriage, he der reverence? What did she think of would have chosen Stella: but "his for- it? It seems to us that a great deal of tunes and his humor "had put matri- quite unnecessary pity has been wasted mony out of the question; and his expe- on Esther Johnson. It may be that Swift rience had been, that violent friendship did not recognize the extent of the sacriwas as much engaging and more lasting fice he demanded; but in truth, was the than violent love. Every care was taken sacrifice so hard? Is there any proof that to make the nature of the relation clear to Stella was an unwilling victim; or, inthe world; and in point of fact, no scandal | deed, a victim at all? She mixed freely came of it.

The "little language" in which so many of the letters and journals are written, seems to us to point to the same conclusion. Swift dwells upon Esther's charming babyhood with the sweetness and tenderness of parental reminiscence. That innocent babble- the babble of our children before they have quite mastered the difficulties of speech had a perennial charm for him, as, through him, it has for us. "I assure zu it um velly late now; but zis goes to-morrow. Nite, darling rogues.' He has as many pet

66

in society; she occupied a quite assured
position; she was the comfort and con-
fidant of the greatest man of the age. Is
there any reason whatever to hold that
she was unhappy? On the contrary, did
she not declare to the last that she had
been amply repaid?

Long be the day that gave you birth
Sacred to friendship, wit, and mirth;
Late dying, may you cast a shred
Of your rich mantle o'er my head;
To bear with dignity my sorrow,
One day alone, then die to-morrow.

Vanessa (Hester Vanhomrigh) was a woman cast in quite a different mould. Her vehement and unruly nature had never been disciplined; and when her passion was roused, she was careless of her name. There can, we think, be little good doubt that Swift was for some time really interested in her.

names for Stella as a fond father has for a pet daughter. She is Sauce box, and Sluttakins, and dear, roguish, impudent, pretty MD, and politic Madame Poppet with her two eggs a-penny. How lightly, how delicately touched! That is the gayer mood; the more sombre is hardly She was an apt and less striking. In his darkest hours, her pure devotion to him is like light from docile pupil; and if not strictly handsome, heaven. She is his better angel, the she appears to have possessed a certain saint in the little niche overhead who in-power of fascination—the “ strong toil of tercedes for him. "Much better. Thank grace," which is often more potent than God and MD's prayers." Giddy fit mere beauty. It cannot be said, indeed, and swimming in head. MD and God that Swift was in love with Hester; but help me.' Nothing can be more touch- she certainly charmed his fancy and aping. Some critics maintain that Swift pealed successfully to his sympathies. never wrote poetry. It would be truer, Stella was absent in Dublin; and the we think, to affirm that whenever he uses dean was a man who enjoyed the society the poetical form to express (sometimes of women who were pretty and witty and to hide) intense feeling, he writes better accomplished, and who accepted with enpoetry than any of his contemporaries. tire submission his despotic and whimsiWhen, for instance, he urges Stella, cal decrees. Vanessa was such a woman; who had come from her own sick-bed to and he does not, for some time at least, nurse him in his sickness, not to injure appear to have appreciated the almost tropical passion and vehemence of her nature, dangerous and devastating as a thunderstorm in the tropics, — appears,

[ocr errors]

Written in 1720-three or four years after the alleged marriage.

[ocr errors]

on the contrary, to have been in utter what may be called the circumstantial ignorance of what was coming, till she evidence, the evidence of facts and cirthrew herself into his arms. He had had no cumstances, is distinctly adverse. But in serious thought; but the acuteness of the confirmation of what has been already adcrisis into which their intimacy had sud-vanced, we may here remark, that besides denly developed, alarmed and disquieted the letters and poems addressed to herself him. Here was a flood-tide of passion of (where friendship to the exclusion of love which he had had no experience - fierce, is invariably insisted on), he wrote much uncontrollable, intolerant of prudential re- about her. In these papers the same straints. "Can't we touch these bubbles, tone is preserved, she is a dear friend, then, but they break?" some one asks in not a wife. One of them was composed, one of Robert Browning's plays; and like Carlyle's remarkable account of his Swift regarded the situation with the father, in very solemn circumstances, same uneasiness and perplexity. He was written mainly during the hours that was sorely dismayed, utterly put about, elapsed between the day she died and the when he discovered how matters stood. day she was buried. "This day, being It is easy to say that he should have left Sunday Jan. 28, 1727-28, about eight her at once, and avoided any further inti- o'clock at night a servant brought me macy. It is easy to say this; but all the a note with an account of the death of same, the situation in any light was ex- the truest, most virtuous, and valuable tremely embarrassing. He may possibly friend that I, or perhaps any other person, for the moment have been rather flattered was ever blessed with." "This is the by her preference, as most men would be night of her funeral," he adds two days by the attentions of a pretty and attrac- later, "which my sickness will not suffer tive girl; and he may have thought, upon me to attend. It is now nine at night; the whole, that it was best to temporize. and I am removed into another apartment By gentle raillery, by sportive remon- that I may not see the light in the church, strance, he would show her how foolish which is just over against the window of she had been in losing her heart to a man my bed-chamber." No record was ever "who understood not what was love," and penned in circumstances more calculated who, though caressed by ministers of to make a deep impression on the mind, state, was old enough to be her father. and to induce the writer to speak with the But poor Vanessa was far too much in most perfect frankness, sincerity, and unearnest to accept his playful advice. She reserve; but here, as elsewhere, it is the was peremptory and she was abject by irreparable loss of her "friendship "that turns. "Sometimes you strike me with is deplored. Not a word of marriage. that prodigious awe, I tremble with fear; Then there is no proof that Stella at any at other times a charming compassion time asserted that she was his wife, the shows through your countenance, which stories of the meeting with Vanessa, and revives my soul." He must marry her, of the death-bed declaration, being manior she would die. And she did die. It fest inventions. Mr. Craik fairly admits was a hard fate. Another man might that the latter of these is incredible; yet have been free to woo her; but to Swift the evidence which he discards in con. such a union was, of course, impossible. nection with the declaration is almost Stella stood between them, and behind precisely identical with that which he acStella that gloomy phantom of mental and cepts in connection with the marriage. bodily disease which had haunted him all Nor is there any evidence to show that his life. He was not ungrateful to either they were held to be married persons durof these women; but such a return would ing their lives, they had both been dead have been worse than ingratitude. and buried for years before the rumor of their union obtained publicity. There may be in some contemporary lampoon an allusion to the alleged ceremony; we have not met with it nor, so far as we know, has it been met with by any of the biographers. Nor can any plausible motive for the marriage be assigned. There was no scandal to silence; the relations between them, which had subsisted for nearly twenty years, appear to have been sufficiently understood. But assuming that there had been scandal, how was it

Mr. Craik is of opinion that there is enough direct evidence to show that Swift was married to Esther Johnson in 1716. We hold, on the contrary, not only that the direct evidence of marriage is insufficient, but that it can be established with reasonable certainty (in so far, at least, as a negative is capable of proof) that no marriage took place.

We have already described so fully the character of the relations between them, that it is only now necessary to say that

« VorigeDoorgaan »