Mr. Lawrence

“ That impression Mr Lawrence always gives; he sees the world through a magnifying-glass, and perhaps more so in Sons and Lovers than in The White Peacock. In that book he gives us unabashed autobiography—the story of his early youth, of his relation to his mother, a creature of fitful, delicate charm. Mrs Morel is very Northern; she has, with the harshness of her latitude, its fine courage and its ambition; Paul Morel, the hero, is Mr Lawrence himself, the little blue flower on the clinker heap. ”

“ In 1842, the sum had increased to such an amount as I thought would be good for my descendants; and, from that time, I have been my own executor. How shall I show my sense of responsibility? Surely by active deeds more than by unmeaning words. God grant me to be true and faithful in his work!"
Having become fairly established in Boston, Mr. Lawrence concluded to take his brother Abbott, then fifteen years of age, as an apprentice. ”

“ The merchants of this city have ever been distinguished, I believe, for their integrity and benevolence. Nowhere is wealth acquired by a more honest and healthy activity; nowhere is a larger portion of it devoted to all the objects which a wise philanthropy, an extended patriotism, and a tender Christian sympathy, would foster and promote. Mr. Lawrence was conspicuous for these qualities. His integrity, I may venture to say, stands absolutely unimpeached, without spot or blemish. His history, as a merchant, from first to last, will bear the strictest scrutiny. ”

“ Lawrence for the month of December, except his usual record of donations to charitable objects. He seems to have written but few letters, which may in part be [335] accounted for by having had his time much occupied by a most agreeable intercourse with Gen. Franklin Pierce, who, with his family, were his guests during a part of the month. That gentleman had for many years been on terms of intimate friendship with Mr. Lawrence, and had kept up a familiar correspondence from Washington and elsewhere, which no political differences had abated. ”

“ The true novelist, the analyst of human character, has always been a psychologist in an untechnical sense. Before Henry James was Balzac; before Balzac was Goethe; before Goethe was the author of Hamlet. Mr. Lawrence is too fine an artist to import into his art the dubious lingo of psychoanalysis. I doubt, however, if without that muddled pseudo-science (muddled because the facts are muddled) Mr. Lawrence's later fiction would be just what it is. And the main theme of Sons and Lovers is the relation of Paul to his mother. ”

“ Why, to triumph over that ingrate Lawrence by a conquest of the only man within reach who is admitted to be his superior. He has humiliated my pride, wounded my vanity, and, oh heavens! thrown back the most passionate love that woman ever bestowed on man, as too worthless for his acceptance without money. Were Mr. Lee an unmarried man, this Lawrence should be invited to act as his groomsman within the month. As it is, he is distinguished and unapproachable to the common herd. ”

“ And in so doing, and in witnessing the results, and in the atmosphere of sympathy and love thus created, there was a test and a discipline and an enjoyment, as well as a benefit to others, that could have been reached in no other way.
"The second peculiarity in the bounty of Mr. Lawrence, and in which he was preëminent, was the personal attention and sympathy which he bestowed with it. He had in his house a room where he kept stores of useful articles for distribution. He made up the bundle; he directed the package. ”

“ Lawrence had given to the college between thirty and forty thousand dollars; and he had expressed the purpose, if he should live, of aiding it still further. Understanding as he did the position and wants of this college, he sympathized fully with the trustees in their purpose to raise the sum of fifty thousand dollars, and, at the time of his death, was exerting a most warm-hearted and powerful influence for its accomplishment. In reference to this great effort, we feel that a strong helper is taken away. The aid which Mr. Lawrence thus gave to the college was great and indispensable ”

“ Mr Lawrence is certainly one of the young men, not a member of a school, for they have no formal school, and can have none if they are of any value, but a partner in their tendencies and an exponent of their outlook. He has all the unruliness of the small group that is rising up against the threatening State, its rules and its conventions, proclaiming the right of the individual [Pg 91] to do much more than live—namely, to live splendidly. ”

“ We sons are doing less for education for our means than our father for his means."
Of his mother Mr. Lawrence always spoke in the [19] strongest terms of veneration and love, and in many of his letters are found messages of affection, such as could have emanated only from a heart overflowing with filial gratitude. Her form bending over their bed in silent prayer, at the hour of twilight, when she was about leaving them for the night, is still among the earliest recollections of her children. ”

“ During the month of February, an appeal was made to the citizens of Boston in behalf of the famished population of Ireland, and resulted in the sending to that country a large quantity of food and clothing. Mr. Lawrence contributed himself towards the object, and, [237] as was often the case, endeavored to interest others equally with himself. On the 24th of that month, he addressed a note to J. A. Stearns, Esq., Principal of the Mather School, at South Boston, for the pupils of his school composing the Lawrence Association. ”

“ Mr. Lawrence closes the year 1843 by a review of his temporal affairs, and by fresh resolutions of fidelity [181] to his trusts. He then gives an estimate of his income and expenditures, showing a somewhat large excess of the latter, though, as he says, from the state of the times, not to the detriment of his property.
(TO THE MECHANIC APPRENTICES' LIBRARY ASSOCIATION.)
"My young Friends: It cheers and comforts me to learn of your well-doing, and encourages me to offer a word of counsel, as prosperity is often more dangerous in its time than adversity. Now is your seed-time. ”

“ Lawrence, and we were getting ready to take him, too, believing at first that this was his boat.”
Of course, Lieutenant Winters wanted the details, and Chot related their adventures from the moment they met Mr. Lawrence until the release of Bert Creighton from the smugglers’ lair the previous night.
“And you have these men safe in the cellar?” asked Lieutenant Winters, a merry twinkle in his eyes.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I don’t see much use of Uncle Sam keeping his officers in the St. Lawrence. You have done your country a noble service, boys, and one which will not be forgotten.” ”

“ Others drifted in and out helping with demolitions, ciphering and deciphering telegrams, landing stores, pegging down wire roads in the sand and doing a hundred other odd jobs.
‘Mr. [Lowell Thomas] ’s cinema pictures were a triumph of journalistic composition. But they depicted only the earlier Lawrence of the heroic period and wrongly credited him with doing single-handed the whole of the later work of “Hedge-hog” and of Joyce and the British staff. ”

“ There was nothing erratic about Lawrence when he enlisted as an airman in 1922. When I heard of it first it did not surprise me: one learns not to be surprised at anything Lawrence does. My only comment was ‘He [51] knows his own needs,’ and now I can see clearly that it was the most honourable thing to himself that he could have done. It was, moreover, a course that he had decided on in 1919 and had suggested to Air-Marshal Sir Geoffrey Salmond before the Armistice. But not till Mr. Winston Churchill had given the Arabs what Lawrence considered a fair deal was he free to please himself. ”

“ Daniel Sharp."
From Little Nahant, Mr. Lawrence writes to a friend, under date of Aug. 16:
"I have just arisen from bed, and am full of the matter to tell you how much good your letter has done. I came here as the last remedy for a sinking man; and, blessed be God, it promises me renewed life and enjoyment. What is it for, that I am thus saved in life, as by a miracle? Surely it must be in mercy, to finish out my work begun (in your college and other places) , yet unfinished. Pray, give us what time you can when you visit Andover. ”

“ Lawrence’s contributions to periodicals. These contributions are not, everything considered, numerous. There are reasons for this. It has not been Mr. Lawrence’s custom to publish novels serially. He is not a voluminous writer of short stories, contenting himself, evidently, with being a great one. He has never been much given to reviewing, or to any other sort of hack-writing. Plainly, these are not Mr. Lawrence’s ways of keeping the pot boiling.
But numerous or not, the contributions to periodicals are often of great interest—even for reasons unrelated to technical bibliography. ”

“ An active and constant [183] correspondence followed this acquaintance, and was so much prized by Mr. Lawrence that he had most of the letters copied, thereby filling several volumes, from which extracts will from time to time be made. In one of his first letters to that gentleman, dated May 11, he says:
"If, by the consecration of my earthly possessions to some extent, I can make the Christian character practically more lovely, and illustrate, in my own case, that the higher enjoyments here are promoted by the free use of the good things intrusted to me, what so good use can I make of them? ”

“ The preceding entry is given here merely as a sample of many such which are found in Mr. Lawrence's diary. Few who have not had the like experience can estimate the annoyance to which his reputation for benevolence and well-doing subjected him, in the shape of applications for aid in every imaginable form. His perceptions were naturally acute; and a long experience and intercourse with men enabled him to form, at a single glance, a pretty fair estimate of the merits of the applicant. He may sometimes have judged precipitately, and perhaps harshly ”

“ To this volume, the first of three Imagist Anthologies published by the Houghton Mifflin Company, Mr. Lawrence contributed seven poems as follows: “Ballad of Another Ophelia;” “Illicit;” “Fireflies in the Corn;” “A Woman and Her Dead Husband;” “The Mowers;” “Scent of Irises;” “Green.” These poems occupy pages 67 to 78. The first and sixth appeared later in Amores. The second, third, fifth, and seventh were included in Look! We Have Come Through! But, “The Mowers,” revised, was here printed under the title “A Youth Mowing,” and “Illicit” became “On a Balcony.” ”

“ The open-mouthed lovers of the dear people are self-seekers in most instances. Beware of such."
The following extract is taken from a letter, dated January 4th, 1822, addressed by Mr. Lawrence to Hon. Frederic Wolcott, of Connecticut, respecting a son who was about to be placed in his counting-room, and who, in after years, became his partner in business:
"H. will have much leisure in the evening, which, if he choose, may be profitably devoted to study; and we hope he will lay out such a course for himself, as to leave no portion of his time unappropriated. ”

“ The moral taste, like the natural, is vitiated by abuse. Gluttony, tobacco, and intoxicating drink, are not less dangerous to the latter, than loose principles, bad associations, and profligate conduct, are to the former. Look well to all these things."
The year 1833 opened with bright and cheering prospects; for, with Mr. Lawrence's increasing strength and improved health, there seemed a strong ground of hope that he might yet recover all his powers, and once more take his place among his former business associates. ”

“ At the end of his life Lawrence took a small house at Peckham, near London. After a short illness he died 17 Jan. 1839, in his eighty-sixth year. He was buried at Norwood. There is an engraving of Lawrence at an advanced age by Holl after Wivell. About the age of thirty he married Ann Barton, by whom he had one son and five daughters, only the youngest of whom left children.
Although three editions of Lawrence's 'Treatise on Horses' were published, his name was almost entirely forgotten until the republication of some chapters by Mr. E. B. Nicholson in 'The Rights of an Animal,' 1879. ”

“ The sun shines bright, the air is soft; I am comfortable, and expect a pleasant drive in the neighborhood. It is indeed brilliant, beautiful, and interesting to me, beyond any former experience of my life. I am the happiest man alive, and yet would willingly [144] exchange worlds this day, if it be the good pleasure of our best Friend and Father in heaven."
The extract quoted above will give an idea of that state of mind in which Mr. Lawrence was often found by his friends, and which he unceasingly strove to cultivate. ”

“ This appropriation will increase our friend's happiness, even in his heavenly home; for the voice from Heaven proclaims, 'Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.'"
The editor feels some delicacy in inserting the following, from a gentleman still living, and in our own vicinity; but the tribute to Mr. Lawrence, coming, as it does, from a divine so distinguished in all those qualities which adorn his own profession, as well as for every Christian virtue, is too flattering to be omitted ”