Clare

“ My dear Clare,—
You see in what a brotherly way I commence my letter: not with the frigid 'Sir' as if I were addressing one of a totally unkindred clay, one of the drossy children of earth, with whom I have no relationship and feel I could never have any familiarity. Have you ever felt that the presence of a man without feeling made you a fool? I am always dumb, or pusillanimous or (if I speak) ridiculous, in the company of such a person. I love a reasoner, and do not by any means wish to be flashing lightning, cloud-riding, or playing with stars. ”

“ John Clare stayed a week in London, and during the whole of this time felt painfully uncomfortable in his threadbare suit of labourer's clothes, patched top and bottom, with leather baffles and gaiters to match. He fancied, when walking along the streets, that everybody was staring and laughing at his smock frock; and the sound of his heavy hob-nailed shoes startled him whenever he entered a house. What made things worse was, that Mr. Gilchrist wanted to draw him into many fine places and among high and wealthy people, for whose company Clare felt an instinctive dislike. ”

“ After a long pause, the young governess, flushed with emotion, found courage to address her neighbour: 'I hope to see you again, Mr. Clare; I hope you will write to me sometimes.' He had no time to reply before the bell rang and a servant entered the room, reporting that General Birch Reynardson wished to see John Clare before leaving. The intimation was understood. John went up to the library, bowed before his stately host, muttered a few words of thanks, he knew not exactly for what, and left the house. When the gate closed after him, he felt as if expelled from the garden of Eden. ”

“ Clare passed downstairs to the hall. She moved as though her feet did not touch earth. With a fur cloak thrown round her, she opened the door and stepped out into the night, closing the door again behind her. The Downs were there, white in the starlight. Overhead, in a black sky, blazed the constellations, not yet sunk from the splendour of winter: Orion, low in the west, the splendid Plough, and Sirius, single and more brilliant than the rest. Clare passed down the dark path, swept clear of snow, to the little gate; at the gate the dark shape of a man came forward to meet her; it was Lovel. ”

“ To influences other than those of the countryside, Clare remained unimpressionable. To be in London was to long for Helpstone, the commons and pools of which were more precious to the poet than all the glories of Westminster Abbey, and the expanses of the artificial lakes. While he sojourned in the Metropolis the right spark would not fall from heaven, but as soon as he wandered once more among the scenes so long familiar to him, the Muse was his unfailing companion. ”

“ And Clare was very kind to Alwynne, and let her cry in peace. And when she was tired of watching her, she braced her with deft praises of courage and self-control. Self-control appealed very strongly to Clare, Alwynne knew. While she dried her eyes, Clare whispered to her that the past was past and that one couldn't repair one's mistakes [242] by dwelling on them. Let devotion to the living blot out a debt to the dead. She must try and forget. Clare would help her. Clare would try to forget too. They would never speak of it again. Never by word or look would Clare refer to it. ”

“ Drury and his friend rose when John Clare appeared on the threshold of his humble dwelling. A man of short stature, with keen, eager eyes, high forehead, long hair, falling down in wild and almost grotesque fashion over his shoulders, and garments tattered and torn, altogether little removed from rags—the figure thus presented to view was strikingly unlike the picture of the rural poet which the Stamford bookseller had formed in his own mind. ”

“ Clare saw the sky, but he saw something else over him, better than the sky—the face of Mrs. Halliwell, the mistress of the menagerie. In it, as she stood looking down on him, was compassion, mingled with self-reproach.
Clare jumped up, saying, “Good morning, ma’am!” He was yet but half awake, and staggered with sleep.
“My poor boy!” answered the woman, “I sent you to sleep on the cold earth, with a sovereign of your own in my pocket! I made sure you would come and ask me for it! You’re too innocent to go about the world without a mother!” ”

“ With the failure of all his schemes, the great truth began, to dawn upon Clare that he was destined, notwithstanding all his friends and patrons, to remain a farmer's drudge and poetical pauper; destined to plough and thresh for others, and, in his spare hours, to make pretty songs for ladies and gentlemen—something better than a clown, and something less than a lackey in uniform. ”

“ Clare read it through; her face grew white, and she passed it to Petrovitch. He read it silently, his brow contracting. When he laid the paper down he looked at Clare. She had sunk into a chair, her arms stretched out over her knees to their full length, and her hands clasped.
'Poor fellow! poor Dick!' she said; 'but, oh, Cora! poor Mrs Hatfield! How will she bear it? Oh! how cruel life is to some people. ”

“ The inmates of the asylum treated Clare with the greatest respect—far greater than that previously allotted to him by the world without. To his fellow-sufferers he always was John Clare the poet; never Clare the farm-labourer or the lime-burner. An artist among the patients was indefatigable in painting his portrait, in all possible attitudes; others never wearied of waiting upon him, or rendering him some slight service. ”

“ Yes, walking! For Clare was leaning on his arm; her sun-bonnet dangling by the string from her hand, and to my jealous eye she had never looked so near to beautiful. Her cheeks were flushed, and a smile almost loving parted her lips as she looked up into his face. They had stopped to admire a flower, over which Mrs. Dudley still leaned, and he—apparently—was describing some of the same kind he possessed. How I hated Clare, at the moment, there standing with her hand upon his arm, when there was no necessity for the support ”

“ Yet it was like an insult to Clare. For a man who had lately been rough to the girl, almost to brutality, he was singularly sensitive perhaps. But that did not strike him. When he had told her that he loved her, he had been too much in earnest to pick and choose his expressions. But when he had spoken to Lady Fan, he might have chosen and selected and polished his phrases so that Clare should have understood nothing—if he had only known that she had been sitting up there by the cross in the dark. ”

“ So it came that one morning Ann told her father that she had promised to marry Parker Clare. Old John Stimson thought it a bad match: 'when poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window,' he said, fortified by the wisdom of two score ten. But when was ever such wisdom listened to at eighteen!
The girl resolved to marry her lover with or without leave; and as for Parker Clare, he needed no permission, his mother, dependent for years upon the cold charity of the workhouse, having long ceased to control his doings. ”

“ Having discovered that the noble lord was in the habit of occasionally visiting some outlying farms, the shrewd clerk waylaid his lordship, and, together with his young friend, burst upon him like an apparition. Breaking out into glowing praise of John Clare, which made the latter blush like a maiden, the parish-clerk finished by pulling from his pocket a bit of antique pottery, unearthed somewhere in the grounds between Helpston Heath and Castor. ”

“ Clare's swan-song, we fervently hope, will live as long as the English language.
For the last ten or twelve years of his existence the poet suffered much from physical infirmities. Previously he was allowed to go almost daily into the town of Northampton, where he used to sit raider the portico of All Saints' Church, watching the gambols of the children around him, and the fleeting clouds high up in the sky. When these excursions came to be forbidden, he retired to his window-recess in the asylum, reading little and speaking little; dreaming unutterable dreams of another world. ”

“ Forgive me for talking thus to you, my dear Clare. I have no other motive than your domestic happiness, which I anxiously pray may be undisturbed by any event. I lament to learn by your letter that to stifle recollections of the past, &c., you should have fled to such resources on your journey home. Now you become the sufferer by such means. Why not exert your philosophy, instead of seeking that which serves to destroy your health and peace? You know, my dear Clare, that you are injuring yourself in the deepest sense by such habits. ”

“ There was hardly a touch of earth in her love for Clare. To her sublime trustfulness he was all that goodness could be—knew all that a guide, philosopher, and friend should know. She thought every line in the contour of his person the perfection of masculine beauty, his soul the soul of a saint, his intellect that of a seer. The wisdom of her love for him, as love, sustained her dignity; she seemed to be wearing a crown. The compassion of his love for her, as she saw it, made her lift up her heart to him in devotion. ”

“ Clare, and in an unguarded moment I violated my vows of chastity. I shall soon become a mother. Reverend Ambrosio, take compassion on me; take compassion on the innocent being whose existence is attached to mine. If you discover my imprudence to the domina, both of us are lost. The punishment which the laws of St. Clare assign to unfortunates like myself, is most severe and cruel. Worthy, worthy father! let not your own untainted conscience render you unfeeling towards those less able to withstand temptation! ”

“ John Clare accepted the first invitation with some shyness; but before long felt himself fully at home at his friend's house, examining the books, maps, and pictures spread out before him with a blissful enjoyment never before known. The Sunday visits to Stamford, after a while, became to him such an intense delight that he could scarcely await the happy day, and even neglected his love affairs in its expectation. There were no visits to Walkherd Lodge on Saturday evenings, when John went early to bed, in order to rise earlier the next morning. ”

“ He first of all ordered that Clare should be kept absolutely quiet; in cheerful society, if possible, but not allowed to read too many books, or to discuss abstruse subjects. It might have been difficult to carry out these orders; but, fortunately, friend Rippingille, the painter, was drinking pale ale at Bristol for the season, so that Clare, having nobody to lead him through his favourite taverns and concert-rooms, and being still afraid to hazard alone into the whirlpool of London life, was almost compelled to stop at home. ”

“ Taylor, dated February, 1825, shows the excited state of the poet at this period. 'I fear,' wrote Clare, 'I shall get nothing ready for you this month; at least I fear so now, but may have fifty subjects ready tomorrow. The muse is a fickle hussy with me; she sometimes stirs me up to madness, and then leaves me as a beggar by the wayside, with no more life than what's mortal, and that nearly extinguished by melancholy forebodings.' Further on he breaks out into the exclamation: 'I wish I could live nearer you; at least I wish London could be within twenty miles of Helpston. ”

“ Clare seemed almost the centre of her world. When Clare smiled she smiled also, and when Clare was pensive there came into her eyes a look which held, besides pensiveness, a touch of sadness. She was an extremely beautiful girl and in the yellow light the coils of her hair shone like sheaves of golden corn on a summer's day. It was obvious that, conversationally at any rate, she was extremely shy.
Mrs. Ervine was saying: "You're going to take the music, Mr. Speed, are you not?" ”

“ Clare knew that she loved him—every curve of her form showed that—but he did not know at that time the full depth of her devotion, its single-mindedness, its meekness; what long-suffering it guaranteed, what honesty, what endurance, what good faith. ”

“ He even remonstrated about his friend's coldness in receiving gifts offered by real lovers and admirers of his genius. The chord thus struck reverberated freely, and Clare, after warmly shaking Mr. Gilchrist by the hand, returned home to his wife and parents, joyfully communicating the great news that he was now the owner of not less than four hundred and twenty pounds. They fancied it an inexhaustible store of wealth, and great, accordingly, was the joy within the little cottage. ”

“ Troubled for the trouble of little Ann, Clare seemed drawn into the sunset. The splendour said to him: “Go on; sorrow is but a cloud. Do the work given you to do, and the clouds will keep moving; stop your work and the clouds will settle down hard.”
“When I was on the tramp,” thought Clare, “I always went on, and that’s how I came here. ”

“ Emmerson's kindness and activity had provided, Clare kept his garden and ground in order; yet the winter of 1832 was a time of great hardship and foreboding. His youngest son Charles was born on the 4th of January, 1833; the event shook Clare's nerve more terribly perhaps than anything before had done and he went out into the fields. Late in the day his daughter Anna found him lying unconscious, and for a month he had to keep his bed. As if to prove the proverb "It never rains but it pours," subscribers to his new volume hung back, and when spring had come they numbered in all forty-nine. ”

“ Taylor:—'The discretion which makes Clare hesitate to receive as canonical all the accounts he has heard of the former honours of Langley Bush, is in singular contrast with the enthusiasm of his poetical faith. As a man, he cannot bear to be imposed upon,—his good sense revolts at the least attempt to abuse it;—but as a poet, he surrenders his imagination with most happy ease to the allusions which crowd upon it from stories of fairies and ghosts. ”