Thomas Hughes

“ I don’t mean that you should adopt politics as a profession, because, as matters stand in this country, poor men, as most of you will be, are not able, as a rule, to do this and retain their independence. But I want you to try to understand politics, and to study important questions as they arise, so that you may be always ready to support, with all the influence you may happen to have, the measures and policy which you have satisfied yourselves will be best for your country. ”

“ For, in a noisy and confused time like ours, it does seem to me that most of us have need to be reminded of, and will be the better for bearing in mind, the reserve of strength and power which lies quietly at the nation’s call, outside the whirl and din of public and fashionable life, and entirely ignored in the columns of the daily press. ”

“ I could easily manage it, and meet you in London in time to visit Lady Salusbury. You will not think, I know well, that I like shooting better than home; and if you would like to see me before you go to London, pray say so, and the moors will not occupy another thought in my head. It is not everyone who would have taken the trouble to find out that I liked shooting and I feel Mr. Beaumont’s kindness; in fact, he seems as generous as a prince to everyone with whom he has anything to do. ”

“ Poor dear old George! old in the language of affection, ever since we were all at Rugby. Oh! how much I regret now that I never found time in these last few idle years of my life to pay him a visit. And yet, to the brightness and pleasure of my recollections of him, nothing could be added. To [47] the very last he was what he was at the very first: a giant, with a giant’s gentleness and firmness. You may perhaps none of you know that he always felt sure boating was too violent an exercise for anyone. ”

“ The former life you must share with others, with your family, your schoolfellows and friends, with everyone you meet in business or pleasure. The latter you must live alone, in the solitude of your own inmost being, if you can find no Spirit there communing with yours—in the presence of, and in communion with, the Father of your spirit, if you are willing to recognize that presence. The one life will no doubt always be the visible expression of the other; just as the body is the garment in which the real man is clothed for his sojourn in time. ”

“ I am sure he would be exceedingly popular with officers and men. If he had been bad-tempered, or disobedient, or ill-conditioned, I should have recommended the navy, as by far the best school for such a character; but as he does not want such discipline, as we have no interest, as it is a poor profession in a worldly point of view, and as he is (I fancy) rather too old, I think it is out of the question. I confess I should hesitate much between orders and the army. If I saw any likelihood of Harry’s doing anything at Oxford, I should like to see him a clergyman. ”

“ If a richer book in its own sphere has been written by an American author, we are not familiar with it, and this we say despite the genial author’s rebuke of criticism by comparison. From its opening page to its close there is not a dry one in it, and some of its hits at popular fallacies and stubborn dogmas are keen and incisive; while at the same time the delightful humor and kindly spirit which accompany the lancet, make it impossible for one to take offence, be his pet notions ever so much ridiculed. ”

“ Those young men who have a real regard for the character of their school, which all of you are ready [35] enough to stickle for when you get outside its walls, must not allow it to become a mere blackguard bear-garden, and to stink in the nostrils of other public schools, by tolerating, in those they are expected to govern, such things as they would not do themselves. When you grow a little older you will soon perceive that there is no situation in life worth having, and implying any respect, where moral firmness is not continually required, and unpleasant duties are to be performed. ”

“ You can see distant and abstracted things well enough; but in such common things as are understood and practised by every boy behind a counter who is worth his salt, you are in the state of a blind puppy in the straw. I do not speak with the least anger on the subject; but, as a man of common worldly sense, I cannot too pointedly and forcibly urge on you, that without a complete alteration in this respect, everything of real importance which you attempt in the business of life will be an absolute failure. ”

“ Donnington, 1839.
“Your mother and grandmother are both anxious that some destination should be early fixed for all of you; but on this I, who am more answerable, am rather cautious; feeling that much depends on what your own habits and predilections may be. At all events the right basis of every one’s education is this—to love God and your neighbour, and do your duty with diligence in whatever state of life circumstances may place you. No one can live in vain acting on these principles, and whatever tends not to their establishment is of very trifling importance. ”

“ To the northward of Stirling, of golf, and of curling,
Let the chiels wi’ no trousers crack on as they will.
Cricket, football, and rackets—but hold, I’ll not preach,
Every man to his fancy:—I’m too old to mend—
So give me a good stretch down the Abingdon reach,
Six miles every inch, and “hard all” to the end. ”

“ May we, my dear Tom, have grace given us so to fight the good fight of truth and faith, that when our work is done we may be called thither to join your dear brother and our other loved ones, who have gained the victory over self and the world, and have been called to their rest before us. ”

“ You may get young men together for cricket or football, or even for readings, or in a club, and attain in the process a certain familiarity with them, useful enough in its way, but not approaching the kind of intimacy which should exist between people passing their lives in the same small community. The effort to do anything more with a class just emancipated from control, full of strength and health, and as a rule suspicious of advances from those in a rank above their own, must always be an exceedingly difficult one to make for such a man as my brother, and is rarely successful. ”

“ But the Mouse’s terriers defied it. From living on such intimate terms with their master, they had become as sharp as undergraduates. They were never seen about the quadrangles in the day-time, and knew the sound and sight of dean, tutor, and porter, better than any freshman. When the Mouse went out of College, they would stay behind on the staircase till they were sure he must be fairly out in the street, and then scamper across the two quadrangles, and out of the gate, as if their lives depended on the pace. ”

“ The knowledge of history, divinity, and the dead languages, which you are now acquiring, are the basis of a liberal education, and play into each other as naturally as the hilt of a weapon fits the blade: these therefore are the points of leading interest in your life, in which your push should be made. ”

“ You should have remembered, as a Christian, that to insult the poor is to despise the ordinance of God in making them so: and moreover, being well born and well bred, and having lived in good company at home, which, may be, has not been the privilege of all your schoolfellows, you should feel that it is the hereditary pride and duty of a gentleman to protect those who perhaps never sat down to a good meal in their lives. ”

“ There is not one of you, however young, but must be living two lives—and the sooner you come to recognize the fact clearly, the better for you—the one life in the outward material world, in contact with the things which you can see, and taste, and handle, which are always changing and passing away: the other in the invisible, in contact with the unseen ”

“ So he slunk off, muttering to himself, to the disgust of the boys who hoped for a row, and I strutted out of my corner, while George went back to his rounders, after looking round and saying, “Just let me hear any of you call my brother ‘Cad’ again.” I don’t think I ever heard that nickname again at our first school, and it must have been very shortly after that he wrote home, “I find I like Tom better at school than I do at home, and yet I do not know the reason.” The strongest and most generous natures are always fondest of those who lean on them. ”

“ The real fact is, that nations, and the families of which nations are composed, make no parade or fuss over that part of their affairs which is going right. National life depends on home life, and foreign critics are inclined to take the chronicles of our Divorce Court as a test by which to judge the standard of our home life, like the old gentleman who always spelt through the police reports to see “what the people were about.” ”

“ We borrow the ideas of these Frenchmen, of association as opposed to competition as the true law of industry; and of organizing labour—of securing the labourer’s position by organizing production and consumption—and it would be cowardly to shirk the name. It is only fools who know nothing about the matter, or people interested in the competitive system of trade, who believe, or say, that a desire to divide other people’s property is of the essence of Socialism. ”

“ Again in 1840, referring to this indolent, easy-going habit, your grandfather writes:—
“The temper of mind which I mean is often allied (and in your case I trust and believe it is) to certain qualities, good in a social and Christian sense: candour, good nature, and a contented spirit; just as certain peculiar weeds are frequently the indication of a sound and wholesome staple of soil: but then they are weeds, and it is a Christian duty to eradicate them in the labourer responsible for the care of the soil. In this respect the children of this world are the wisest in their generation. ”

“ Just in so far as you cleave to that teaching, and follow that life, will you live your own faithfully. If I were not sure that what I am going to try to do for you would help to turn you more trustfully and lovingly to that source of all truth, all strength, all light, be sure I would not have undertaken it. ”

“ If he had twitted me because I could not come under the trees at the rook-shooting, or because I was afraid of Moggy, I should probably never have felt the shame, or made the exertion, necessary to overcome my natural timidity. And to you who are not naturally courageous, I would say, make the effort to conquer your fear at once; you can’t begin too early, and will never be worth much till you have made it. ”

“ But the old lady is nothing to a boy, who lies on the ground and bellows like a bull positively for three or four hours together; I quite admire the energy with which he follows his profession. From the number of crippled and deformed persons one sees, I am inclined to believe that the Neapolitans purposely mutilate themselves in order to succeed better in their favourite calling. They will do anything sooner than work usefully. ”

“ When every line and word is full of life and interest to oneself, it is perhaps hard to judge where to stop for the next generation. A few short extracts, however, from his letters during his last three years will, I think, interest you. At least some of the references will show you what a time of revolution you were born into. When we were your ages there was no railway between London and Birmingham: and in all other directions, and on all other sides of English life, the change seems to me quite as great as in this of locomotion. ”

“ My brother, after taking his degree, remained up at Oxford in lodgings, attending lectures; and, when I went out of College in the term before my own examination, I joined him, and once again we found ourselves living in a common sitting room. I think it was a very great pleasure to both of us; and as soon as my troubles in the Schools were over, and the short leisure time which generally follows that event had set in, we began to talk over subjects which had hitherto been scarcely mentioned between us, but which, on the threshold of active life, were becoming of absorbing interest. ”

“ There are now more than 1,000 societies registered under that Act in England alone, doing a yearly business of ten millions and owning property of the amount of £2,500,000 and upwards; and as he saw the principle spreading, and working practically, and, wherever it took root, educating the people in self-control, and thrift, and independence, he was far too good an Englishman not to rejoice at, and sympathise with, the result, though I doubt whether he ever quite got over the feeling of distrust and anxiety with which he regarded even a peaceful, and apparently beneficent, revolution. ”

“ And so it was with all our games and exercises, whether we were at football, wrestling, climbing, single-stick (which latter we were only allowed to practise in the presence of an old cavalry pensioner, who had served at Waterloo) . He seemed to lay hold of whatever he put his hand to by the right end, and so the secret of it delivered itself up to him at once. One often meets with people who seem as if they had been born into the world with two left hands, and two left feet, and rarely with a few who have two right hands ”

“ You have (to use a phrase in athletics) lost your first wind, and haven’t yet got your second wind. The novelty of excitement of school life has gone off, and you are too new to it yet to enjoy what there is enjoyable in it. ”

“ He was always a keen politician, retaining, however, all his early beliefs. “You have all got far beyond me,” he writes to his sister; “and my dear mother turning Radical in her old age is delightful.” Perhaps the most ardent politician amongst us all is the best witness to call on this subject. “I don’t think anything was more remarkable about George than his politics. He, who was so good an old Tory in many ways, showed that he believed in a universal principle and duty underlying all the political opinions about the best means of carrying out reforms. ”