# A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems/James Thomson

JAMES THOMSON.
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A Poem, a Drama, or a Novel, the perusal of which has moved our admiration, or affected our feelings, can hardly fail to make us desire to know something of its creator. We feel that the powers developed by the author must correspond with the faculties inherent in the man, and that the man must be at least as interesting as his work. It is not by insignificant or commonplace natures that works of enduring merit can be produced. Only by virtue of possessing unusual depth of feeling, intensity of aspiration, or wealth of intellect, does an author produce a masterpiece; and his success is always in direct proportion to the fineness and richness of his own personality. Sometimes, indeed, the character of an author will impart a factitious importance to his works. How dim and shadowy a figure would Dr. Johnson now appear, had his reputation depended solely upon his writings! ​Our interest in the works of Burns, Byron, and Shelley is surely doubled, at least, by the knowledge we possess of the events of their lives. And if, in becoming acquainted with their aspirations and their achievements, their errors and their sins are also made known to us, even so we have to consider that their faults were such as belong to mankind in general, while their genius belonged to themselves alone. The faults of common men die with them because the men themselves are forgotten, whereas the sins of a Burns or a Byron are remembered because he has himself immortalised them.
Mr. Thomson's works are excellent enough to stand upon their own merits; yet there is much in them that may seem obscure to those who know nothing of his life. His poems have this in common with those of Burns and Byron, that their interest is intensely personal. Most of them are reflections of his own individuality, and their interest depends upon the skill with which he has rendered his personal feelings interesting to the reader, rather than to his having dramatically expressed the thoughts and feelings of others. The key to his writings is to be found in the events of his life, and it is this key that I have endeavoured to supply in the following pages.
James Thomson was born at Port Glasgow, on the 23d of November, 1834. Both of his parents were Scotch, and James was their first child. The father had attained a good position in the merchant navy, and at one time occupied the post of chief officer in a ship trading to China. His mother was a zealous Irvingite, and it seems probable that it was to her he owed his deeply emotional and imaginative temperament. About ​five years after the birth of James a second son was born, and in little more than a year afterwards the mother died. The father had by this time fallen somewhat in the social scale, owing, it is said, to habits of intemperance. I cannot give any other particulars respecting him, save a somewhat vague report that he became imbecile and died a few years afterwards. On the mother's death, the infant child was taken charge of by relatives living at Port Glasgow. Some friends of the father exerted themselves in favour of James, and through their interest he was admitted into that excellent institution, the Caledonian Orphan Asylum. Here he proved himself a quick and intelligent scholar, and his rapid progress in acquiring knowledge gave the greatest satisfaction to his tutors.
When the time came for him to quit the Asylum, the question arose of what was to be his future profession. What he himself desired was to obtain a clerkship in a bank or a city merchant's office. But no such place was to be obtained except on condition of his serving for a time without pay, and this he could not do, for he was entirely without resources. He had, it is true, well-to-do relatives in London, but they gave him no assistance. No choice was left to him but to take the advice of some of the masters at the Asylum, who advised him to qualify for the post of a schoolmaster in the army. He did so, although he much disliked the idea, and he was allowed to join the service as assistant-schoolmaster. In this capacity he was sent to Ireland, the garrison which he joined being stationed at Ballincollig, near Cork. It may be remarked here, that his position in the army, however distasteful it may have been to him, was not an ​altogether unenviable one. The usual routine of school duty consists, I am told, in teaching the children for three hours in the forenoon, an equal time being devoted to the instruction of the adults in the afternoon. This leaves a good deal of time free for study or recreation, and there is plenty of evidence to show that Thomson made the best use possible of his leisure hours at this period.
During the time that he remained at the Asylum he spent his holidays at the home of a kind and liberal gentleman, an old friend of his father. From one of the daughters of this gentleman much of the information here embodied has been derived; and I will now quote from her account of him a very interesting passage:—
"Being several years younger than James, I cannot recollect much about him as a boy, but I remember we always thought him wonderfully clever, very nice-looking, and very gentle, grave and kind. He was always most willing to attend to our whims, but my eldest sister was his especial favourite. Her will seemed always law to him. She was gay, as he was grave, but whatever Helen said or did won appreciation from him. . . . Previous to going (to Ireland) he earnestly requested that my sister might be allowed to correspond with him, a request which my parents thought it wiser to refuse. I was allowed, however, to do so, and although his letters came few and far between, I always welcomed and appreciated them. He used to endeavour to guide my tastes, and gave me good advice as to the books I should read, sending me Charlotte Brontë's 'Life and Letters,' ​Mrs. Browning's 'Aurora Leigh,' some poems by Robert Browning, and a few other books."
"Wonderfully clever, very nice-looking, and very gentle, grave and kind"—such is the happy and expressive phrase in which this lady sums up the impression which James Thomson made upon her and her sister in his youth. Nor was there any degree of partiality in their judgment, which was only that which any one coming in contact with him must have formed. Quick in acquiring knowledge, he had a memory that retained his acquirements firmly and tenaciously. Languages he mastered easily and thoroughly; and I am assured that he might have won a foremost place as a mathematician, had he persevered with his studies in that science. In literature his taste was at once catholic and unerring: he could relish Swift as well as Shelley, Fielding as well as Mrs. Browning. He had his special literary favourites of course, but I do not think he ever failed to recognise the merits of a really great work, or ever valued a poor or feeble one beyond its deserts. In short, it is hardly possible to imagine a youth of more promise than his was, and none who knew him then could have supposed that he was doomed to a hopeless and joyless existence, which was, in his own words, "a long defeat."
The army cannot be considered as a good school of morals or manners; and it is easy to conceive that the coarse and prosaic life of the camp and the barrack-room was very distasteful to the young student; for he had in full measure the fine sensibility and highly-strung nervous organisation that usually accompany poetic gifts. But it seems likely that what made his situation most irksome ​was that he saw little prospect of escaping from it, and of attaining a position more congenial to his disposition, and offering more scope to the abilities which he felt himself to possess. To be gifted with fine feelings and to nurse great aspirations, yet to be compelled to labour at uncongenial or repulsive tasks is a sufficiently unfortunate fate; and the victim of such circumstances either sinks eventually to the level of his surroundings, or suffers cruelly in the endeavour to escape from them.
It was a noticeable trait in Thomson's character that he hardly ever failed to make warm friends of those with whom he came in familiar contact. He had not long entered the army before he had won the devoted friendship of Joseph Barnes, who was the Garrison-Master of the station to which he was attached. This gentleman was a self-educated man, who had attained his position entirely by the force of his own abilities. In befriending Thomson he was seconded by his wife, a most excellent and kind-hearted woman. In some Sonnets, written in 1862, but not intended for publication, Thomson delineates with an affectionate pen the characters of these two friends of his youth. Mr. Barnes he describes as—
In another Sonnet he says:—
Another of these Sonnets is of such interest and importance that I need make no apology for quoting it in full:—
This Sonnet sums up in brief the sad story of his life. ​It tells the tale of his first meeting with his "Good Angel;" of his intense and overmastering affection for her; of her untimely death, and of his life-long misery and despair. Few words are needed to tell the story; but what a world of suffering is summed up in them!
This young girl was the daughter of the Armourer-Sergeant of a regiment in the Garrison. That she was a creature of uncommon loveliness, both of person and of mind, seems to be certain. She was described by Mrs. Barnes as resembling in character the Evangeline St. Clair of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." I mention this rather unwillingly, for I confess that my feeling with regard to the authoress of that once popular novel is anything but one of respect. Yet it must be owned, I think, that in delineating Eva St. Clair she has well pourtrayed a character of peculiar charm and sweetness. Twenty years ago it would probably have been difficult to find a reader who was not well acquainted with "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" but its popularity has so much declined of late years, that it is likely enough that Eva St. Clair is a name only to the great majority of the present generation. It seems worth while therefore to quote a short passage from the novel, in which her appearance and character are described:—
"Her form was the perfection of childish beauty, without its usual chubbiness and squareness of outline. There was about it an undulating and aërial grace, such as one might dream of for some mythic and allegorical being. Her face was remarkable, less for its perfect beauty of feature, than for a singular and dreamy earnestness of expression, which made the ideal start ​when they looked at her, and by which the dullest and most literal were impressed, without knowing why. The shape of her head and the turn of her neck and bust was peculiarly noble, and the long golden-brown hair, that floated like a cloud around it, the deep spiritual gravity of her violet-blue eyes, shaded by heavy fringes of golden-brown, all marked her out from other children, and made every one turn and look after her, as she glided hither and thither. Nevertheless, the little one was not what you would have called either a grave child or a sad one. On the contrary, an airy and innocent playfulness seemed to flicker like the shadow of summer leaves over her childish face, and around her buoyant figure. . . . Always dressed in white, she seemed to move like a shadow through all sorts of places without contracting spot or stain; and there was not a corner or nook where those fairy footsteps had not glided, and that visionary golden head, with its deep blue eyes, fleeted along."
It is to be observed that this is the portrait of quite a young girl; but it is obvious that a very slight degree of alteration is needed to make it apply to one much older. Moreover, the passage I have quoted agrees so well with the various references in Mr. Thomson's writings to his lost love, that I can hardly doubt that it is an essentially true picture of her. We have in "Vane's Story" a description of her which will well bear comparison with the above extract:
Thomson's devoted love was fully reciprocated by the object of it. Both of them were still very young; so young indeed, that it would scarcely have been a wonder if the rough soldiers amongst whom they lived, had been inclined to ridicule their attachment. But they were generally liked and respected and all who knew them felt a kindly interest in them, and wished them well. Their dream of love and happiness was brief indeed in duration, but it was perfect and unalloyed whilst it lasted.
Amongst those with whom he became acquainted in the army, the most notable was Charles Bradlaugh. Both entered the service about the same time. They were then youths of sixteen and seventeen years, Bradlaugh being the senior by about fourteen months. It was a strange chance that brought these two, so unlike in nearly every respect, together. Bradlaugh, the man of action and enterprise, ever striving for practical ends, yet loving a contest, whether physical or mental, as much for its own sake as for any advantage it might bring him: of firm and inflexible determination, who, when he has once ​resolved to attain an object, never rests until that object is achieved. Thomson, the student, the idealist and poet, or say the dreamer, who shrank with almost morbid dislike from the noise and tumult of publicity, and who, like Hamlet, was fitted rather for contemplation than for action. What points of contact had they to bring them together and unite them in the bonds of friendship? It is probable, indeed, that each liked and respected the other for the very qualities which he himself lacked; certain it is that they remained for many years on terms of intimate friendship.
Bradlaugh, even at this early period of his life, had made himself known as an advocate of extreme political and theological views. Thomson had been pretty well grounded in Presbyterian theology, and although his views at this time may not have been strictly orthodox, yet he still believed in Christianity. Many and animated were the discussions that took place between them at this period—discussions that left each of them (as is usually the case) still of his own opinion. It would be a mistake to suppose that Thomson's opinions were modified in any way, owing to his intimacy with Bradlaugh. Whatever views he adopted were the result of careful inquiry and long meditation, and few persons were less likely to be swayed by the opinions of others. If he was any man's disciple, he was the disciple of Shelley, in whom ​he recognised his poetical and personal ideal. He studied his works with minute and loving care, and to the last never ceased to speak of him in terms of admiration and gratitude. It is very probable that the study of Shelley's writings first led Thomson to doubt the truth of the doctrines of Christianity; but he would not have accepted even Shelley's conclusions had they not tallied with those which he arrived at by independent inquiry and thought. A change of creed to a sensitive person must ever be a painful process, and there is plenty of evidence to prove that it was so in Thomson's case. But one of his most marked characteristics was his complete intellectual honesty. His convictions were slowly formed, tenaciously held, and always expressed with vigour and decision. He never modified or softened the expression of his ideas from fear of Mrs. Grundy, or to conciliate his readers. Had he been less sincere or uncompromising his literary career would doubtless have been more successful.
Thomson remained in the army as assistant schoolmaster for about two years, the regiment to which he was attached being stationed in Ireland during the whole of that time. At the end of this period he was (according to the usual practice) sent to the Training College at ​Chelsea to finish the course of studies necessary to qualify him for the post of a schoolmaster. The usual practice is for the students to remain there for two years, which period is required in most cases in order to fit the candidates for their duties. In his case, however, it was quite unnecessary to keep him there for such a length of time: indeed, he was quite able to pass the necessary examinations after he had been there only six months. Routine, however, exacted a stay of at least eighteen months before he was allowed to receive his appointment as schoolmaster.
It was towards the close of his stay at the College that he received the news of the death of his beloved. One morning there came a letter stating that she was dangerously ill: the next morning came the news of her death. Words cannot picture his grief and sorrow for her. For three days after receiving the news of her death, no food passed his lips, and it can hardly be doubted that he intended to starve himself to death. Had he done so the world would have lost much; but he himself would have lost nothing that he cared for, and would have been spared long dreary years of suffering and despair. Thenceforth Regret and Sorrow were his inseparable companions, and without hope and almost without object, his was rather a death-in-life than a healthy and natural existence. In striking him thus through his affections, destiny had wounded him where he was most vulnerable. No other affliction could have affected him as he was affected by this. In after-years he was doomed to endure much poverty: he suffered constant rebuffs in his endeavours to get his works published; and finally neglect ​and discouragement so far affected him, that for "seven songless years" his muse was almost or altogether silent. These would have been grievous trials to most poets, and perhaps to him also under other circumstances: but his capacity for suffering was exhausted by his one great grief, and all his other misfortunes were borne with stoical indifference.
He left the Training College in 1854, when the Crimean War was about to begin. He was first sent to serve with a militia regiment in Devonshire. Afterwards he served at Aldershot, Dublin, Jersey, and other places. As regards his conduct as a schoolmaster, it may be remarked that his duties were always efficiently performed; but, as he felt little interest in his profession, he made no pretence of doing so, and in consequence, perhaps, did not obtain so much credit as he really deserved.
It must not be thought that he yielded himself an unresisting victim to the melancholy and despair that had fastened themselves so firmly upon him. He read extensively and studied deeply; but it was the composition of poetry that best enabled him to forget for a time his sorrows. He destroyed many of the poems written in his early manhood; but enough remain to attest the industry with which he cultivated his poetical talents. In the years 1854 to 1860 he wrote many poems, some of which are of considerable length. Perhaps the most remarkable of these is "The Doom of a City," which was written in 1857. Comparing this with "The City of Dreadful Night," written fourteen or fifteen years later, we find a great difference of tone and spirit, but ​nearly the same power of conception and execution. Both are characterised by mastery of thought and language, ease of versification, and command of various metres. Both display the same power of picturesque description: a power that invests the scenes and events described with extraordinary vividness. A painter would find in both many incidents inviting him to transfer them to his canvas, and he might do so almost without introducing a single detail that he did not find described in the poet's verses. In concentration of thought and intensity of expression, "The City of Dreadful Night is as a whole superior to the earlier poem; yet there are some passages in "The Doom of a City" which equal even in these points the later poem. As regards the change that took place in the author's ideas in the interval that elapsed between their composition, the earlier poem supplies interesting evidence. The author of "The Doom of a City" believes in an over-ruling Providence, and in the Immortality of the Soul. He strives to reconcile the existence of evil with belief in a benevolent Creator, and labours to show that mankind are themselves responsible for the miseries they endure. Yet it may be perceived even here that he held these doctrines with no firm assurance, and that he was trying to convince himself that he believed them, rather than holding them with a complete conviction of their truth.
His first published poem was "The Fadeless Bower," which appeared in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine for July, 1858, with the signature of "Crepusculus." He continued to contribute to the pages of that magazine until it was discontinued in 1860. "Bertram to the Lady Geraldine," ​"Tasso to Leonora," "The Lord of the Castle of Indolence," and "A Festival of Life" were among the poems which he contributed to its pages. That at the time of their publication they did not attract much, if any attention may perhaps be accounted, for by considering that Tait at that time had sunk very low both in circulation and influence.
About the same time he contributed some prose essays to the London Investigator, a periodical edited by Charles Bradlaugh. Amongst these were "Notes on Emerson" and "A Few Words about Burns." Both articles are written in a spirit of warm admiration and appreciation of the great qualities of the subjects of them; and I venture to think that the Burns celebration which produced such floods of prose and verse about him, brought forth nothing superior to Thomson's essay as a vindication of his life and genius.
We obtain an interesting glimpse of Thomson as he was in 1860 from the lady whose picture of him as a youth I have already quoted. I give the account nearly in her own words, as I could hardly hope to improve upon her artless and unaffected story. After stating that they had had no personal intercourse with him for some years, she proceeds thus:—
"At last he wrote saying that he was to have a fortnight's holiday, and would pay us a visit. We were all excitement at his coming. I had previously informed him in one of my letters that Helen had become a Ragged School teacher, and in reply he said he could not imagine a creature so bright and in his remembrance so beautiful, being arrayed in sombre ​habiliments and acting such a character. When he arrived Helen met him in the most demure manner possible, and kept up the deception, or rather tried to do so, for he was not to be deceived. Two days after his arrival, when he was sitting reading, she suddenly sent something flying at his head, at which he started up saying 'Ah! I have just been quietly waiting for this! you have been acting a part which does not become you, but you have now resumed your true character, and are the Helen of old.' During this visit we thought him much altered in appearance and manners; indeed, we were somewhat disappointed. He was by no means so manly-looking as when he left London, and was painfully silent and depressed. He went from us with the intention of again going to Aldershot, but from that day until Mr. Maccall mentioned him to us, we never once heard of him. Ever since we have felt greatly puzzled to account for his singular conduct."
It is no wonder that these ladies, knowing nothing of the story of his lost love, were puzzled to account for his silence and depression. He was always singularly reticent, in speech at least, about his private feelings, and only to those who had known him long, and whose friendship he had put to the proof, did he even hint at the cause of his unhappiness. I say "cause" because there cannot be a doubt that the death of his "only love" was the root of his misery: yet along with this there was another circumstance which contributed to his ​unhappiness. He had much in him, in fact, of the "self-torturing" spirit which afflicted Rousseau, and which drove Cowper into insanity. These moods of self-dissatisfaction he has well depicted in "Vane's Story," which is, in fact, when rightly read, as candid and complete an autobiography as was ever written.
It will be seen that the above extract not only depicts the moods I have spoken of, but also records his final deliverance from them. But he was afflicted by them for a good many years, and they contributed to bring ​about the state of nervelessness and want of self-command into which he fell during the last three or four years of his life.
The reader may perhaps ask whether there was not some reason for these fits of self-scorn and remorse? I answer that there was probably as much reason for them in Thomson's case as there was in Cowper's. The good man suffers more from remorse for the commission of some microscopic offence, than the bad man who commits some atrocious crime. Thomson saw this clearly in after-years; and he has well satirised the mood in which we accuse ourselves of being desperate sinners (which yet it is probable that no really good man is altogether a stranger to) in the following epigram:—
In 1860 the National Reformer was established, and Thomson became one of its contributors. His articles, however, only appeared at rather long intervals in the early volumes of that paper. His first important contribution to its pages was an essay on "Shelley." It is a most eloquent tribute to the genius and essential greatness of the "poet of poets."
Early in 1861 appeared a poem entitled "The Dead Year." It reviews in an interesting and forcible manner the chief events of the year 1860. The two stanzas ​descriptive of Mazzini and Garibaldi may be quoted as fairly representative of the spirit of the poem :—
In 1863 the beautiful poem "To our Ladies of Death" appeared in the National Reformer and after that date his contributions to it, both in prose and verse, became more frequent. It is unnecessary to enumerate his various writings in it; but it may be stated that most of the poems included in the two volumes already issued, and a large proportion of the prose writings contained in "Essays and Phantasies," first appeared in the Reformer, It is hardly necessary to say that their appearance in such a quarter scarcely tended to advance his reputation. But in it he could publish without restraint his most heterodox productions, and his writings, it must be recollected, were often as heterodox from the Secularist as from the Christian standpoint. I do not know of any ​other paper or magazine in which "Vane's Story," or "The City of Dreadful Night" would have been allowed to appear.
Thomson left the army in October, 1862. He had long been weary of his position in it; but the immediate cause of his leaving was that an accusation of a breach of military discipline was made against him. The story is not worth telling at length: but it may be stated that whether the accusation was true or false, it was one that reflected no moral blame upon him whatever. On leaving the army he applied to Mr. Bradlaugh, who was then acting as managing clerk to a solicitor named Levison, to know whether he could find employment for him. Bradlaugh at once engaged him as a clerk in his office, and also offered him a home with his own family. Thomson accepted this offer, and for some years thereafter the most intimate relations existed between them.
I do not find anything specially worthy of record during the next nine or ten years of Thomson's life, although, in a literary point of view, these years were perhaps his best and most productive period. In 1869 Mr. Froude accepted his poem called "Sunday up the River" for Fraser's Magazine, of which he was then the editor. Before inserting it, he asked Charles Kingsley's opinion upon it, whose judgment was warmly in its favour. This was almost the only instance (before the publication of "The City of Dreadful Night" in 1880) in which he was enabled to get one of his productions published, apart from the Secular papers. It may be worth mentioning that at one time he wrote two or three articles for the Daily Telegraph, and he might ​perhaps have been regularly engaged upon that paper; but leader-writing to order was by no means to his taste.
In 1872 he became secretary to a company which was formed to work an American silver mine. In this capacity he was sent out to America by the shareholders to report upon the prospects of their speculation. There he discovered that the shareholders had been deluded into purchasing an utterly unsound concern, so that his mission and his situation as secretary came to an end together. His general verdict upon the Americans is well expressed in the following extract from a letter to a friend which he wrote while there:—
"I think we must forgive the Americans a good deal of vulgarity and arrogance for some generations yet. They are intoxicated with their vast country and its vaster prospects. Besides, we of the old country have sent them for years past, and are still sending them, our half-starved and ignorant millions. The Americans of the War of Independence were really a British race, and related to the old country as a Greek colony to its mother city or state. But the Americans of to-day are only a nation in that they instinctively adore their union. All the heterogeneous ingredients are seething in the cauldron with plenty of scum and air bubbles atop. In a century or two they may get stewed down into homogeneity—a really wholesome and dainty dish, not to be set before a king though, I fancy. I resisted the impression of the mere material vastitude as long as possible, but found its influence growing on me week by week: for it implies such vast possibilities of moral and intellectual expansion. They are starting over here ​with all our experience and culture at their command, without any of the obsolete burdens and impediments which in the course of a thousand years have become inseparable from our institutions, and with a country which will want more labour and more people for many generations to come."
Then comes a characteristic passage about himself:—
"I am quite well again. Though never perhaps very strong, and rarely so well as to feel mere existence a delight (as to a really healthy person it must be; no inferior condition, in my opinion, deserves the name of health), I am seldom what we call unwell. When travelling about I always find myself immensely better than when confined to one place. With money, I believe I should never have a home, but be always going to and fro on the earth, and walking up and down in it, like him of whom I am one of the children."
Soon after his return from America he was engaged by the proprietors of the New York World to go to Spain as their Special Correspondent with the Carlists, who were then (1873) in insurrection against the Republican government. Their cause was apparently prospering, and it was supposed that they were about to make a bold stroke and march upon Madrid. This however they did not attempt, and though there was much marching and counter-marching there was very little real fighting. Thomson gave in the pages of the Secularist an entertaining account of his Spanish experiences. He remained in Spain about two months, and whilst there was for a time prostrated by a sun-stroke.
Shortly after his return to England, he became ​secretary to another company, which also collapsed after a brief career. In 1874 he published in the National Reformer his most remarkable work, "The City of Dreadful Night." This poem was much more fortunate than its predecessors, for it attracted a good deal of notice in literary circles, and was very favourably spoken of in the Academy. The Spectator devoted an article to it, which, though censuring its tone, yet did some degree of justice to the remarkable powers of the author. But what most delighted Mr. Thomson was a few words of praise from the author of "Adam Bede." For "George Eliot" he always felt and expressed the deepest admiration, and her praise probably gave him the greatest degree of pleasure that he was capable of feeling. Here is an extract from her letter:—"My mind responds with admiration to the distinct vision and grand utterance in the poem which you have been so good as to send me. Also I trust that an intellect informed by so much passionate energy as yours will soon give us more heroic strains with a wider embrace of human fellowship in them—such as will be to the labourers of the world what the odes of Tyrteus were to the Spartans, thrilling them with the sublimity of the social order, and the courage of resistance to all that would dissolve it."
Mr. W. M. Rossetti (to whose edition of Shelley's Poetical Works Thomson had contributed some notes) also expressed his great admiration for the poem, and thenceforth remained on very friendly terms with the author. Philip Bourke Marston, the unfortunate Oliver Madox Browne, and Miss Blind may also be mentioned ​as persons who felt and expressed high admiration for "The City of Dreadful Night."
Apologising for whatever may seem egotistical in the narrative, I shall now proceed to give some account of my own acquaintance with Mr. Thomson. When I read on its first appearance in the National Reformer the poem "To our Ladies of Death" I became convinced that it must be the work of a genuine poet. I read it again and again, my admiration increasing with each perusal. Thenceforth I looked eagerly in each issue of the Reformer for some new poem or essay from the pen of "B. V."
The impression upon my mind of the great powers of this unknown writer deepened with time, and my wonderment was great that an author of such genius should confine it to the pages of the Reformer.
"The City of Dreadful Night" when first published ran through four or five numbers of the National Reformer. It was, however, crowded out of the paper one week, and held over to the next number. Thereupon I wrote to the editor to express my disappointment at its non-appearance, taking occasion at the same time to ​avow my admiration of it, and of Mr. Thomson's writings generally. The editor handed my note to Mr. Thomson, who thereupon wrote me the following letter:—
"Dear Sir,—I have just received from Mr. Bradlaugh your note about myself, and hasten to thank you heartily for your very generous expressions of approval of my writings. While I have neither tried nor cared to win any popular applause, the occasional approbation of an intelligent and sympathetic reader cheers me on a somewhat lonely path.
"You must not blame Mr. Bradlaugh for the delay in continuing my current contribution to his paper. . . . As an Editor he must try to suit his public, and the great majority of these care nothing for most of what I write. As for this 'City of Dreadful Night,' it is so alien from common thought and feeling, that I knew well (as stated in the Proem) that scarcely any readers would care for it; and Mr. B. tells me that he has received three or four letters energetically protesting against its publication in the N. R., yours I think being the only one praising it. Moreover, one must not forget that there is probably no other periodical in the kingdom which would accept such writings, even were their literary merits far greater than they are. . . .
"While preferring to remain anonymous for the public, I have no reason to hide my name from such correspondents as yourself.—Yours truly,
"James Thomson (B. V.)"
In replying to this letter, I expressed a wish to become personally acquainted with Mr. Thomson. He was ​pleased to accede to my request, and thenceforth we remained on terms of friendship up to the time of his death.
"Why don't you bring out your poems in book form?" was naturally one of the first questions I put to him. Thereupon he explained that he thought it very unlikely that any publisher could be found who would risk money in publishing them, and that he had no means of paying for their publication himself, as most modern poets have to do. This led me to make an offer of such assistance as might be in my power to give him. At first I intended to take the entire risk of their publication upon myself, but my circumstances took rather an unfortunate turn about that time, and I was compelled, very much to my regret, to abandon the idea. Mr. Thomson then tried various publishers, most of whom told him frankly that there was no market for poetry, and that they could not undertake to publish for him. This was fair enough, and he had no ground for dissatisfaction with these gentlemen but it is not so easy to excuse a certain publisher, who, after making a definite promise to publish, and keeping him for some months in suspense, at last refused to fulfil his engagement. Whilst I am upon this subject, it will be well perhaps to relate the circumstances under which the poems were eventually published. It happened to occur to me in a fortunate moment that an application to Messrs. Reeves & Turner on Mr. Thomson's behalf might meet with success. I had already made an unsuccessful trial in another quarter, the gentleman to whom I proposed it valuing his respectability far too much to run any risk of forfeiting it by publishing anything so heterodox as "The City of Dreadful Night." Messrs. ​Reeves & Turner being liberal-minded men who had already distinguished themselves by bringing out the handsomest and most complete edition of Shelley's Works, were not alarmed even by Thomson's heterodoxy, and it was promptly agreed upon that "The City of Dreadful Night, and other Poems" should be issued at the joint risk of those gentlemen and myself.
Returning to Thomson's connection with the National Reformer and Mr. Bradlaugh, it has to be noted that in 1875 disagreements took place between the editor and his most brilliant contributor, which led to the latter's secession from that paper. I have already dwelt upon the utter unlikeness of character of the two men; and considering this, it is by no means surprising that they eventually disagreed; the wonder is rather that they remained friends for so long a time.
It was now necessary for Thomson to seek for other employment; and he was fortunate enough to obtain a literary engagement, which during the few years he was yet to live was to prove his main dependence. Messrs. Cope, the well-known tobacco-merchants of Liverpool, published at this time a monthly periodical called Cope's Tobacco Plant. I suppose their main object in issuing it was to advertise their business; but however this may be, their periodical was of an unusually bright and entertaining character. It was conducted by Mr. John Fraser, whose success in discovering unknown talent, and in availing himself of it, made him a model editor. The contributors were paid on a very liberal scale, and it is probable that Thomson derived almost as much advan​tage from his contributions to the Tobacco Plant as from all his other literary labours put together.
To the Tobacco Plant Thomson contributed articles on Ben Jonson, Rabelais, John Wilson, James Hogg, and Walt Whitman; also reviews of books, a series of papers on Tobacco legislation, &c. He was, in short, one of its most constant contributors from 1875 until it was discontinued in 1881.
Shortly after Thomson's secession from the National Reformer a new Freethought paper was started, entitled the Secularist. To this periodical he now transferred his services, and during the eighteen months that it lasted, he was a constant contributor to its pages. His articles in it were on the most various subjects, and any one who now looks through a file of it, must become convinced that his talents as a journalist were of a very high order, though it may be regretted indeed that his powers were so wasted. One of his most important contributions to the Secularist was a series of articles on Heinrich Heine, who (after Shelley) was the author with whom Thomson was most in sympathy, and whom he had most thoroughly studied. His translations from him have gained general praise; and I think it may be truly said that no other translator has so well rendered the spirit and music of Heine into English. One of the projects which were cut short by his untimely death was a book on Heine, which he had undertaken to write.
I will now quote a few passages, which are of general or personal interest, from his letters to me. The following paragraph, which is from a letter dated June 20, 1874, refers to a poem by Mr. W. M. Rossetti:—
​"Mrs. Holmes Gray' I want to read carefully before returning. If he wrote that in 1849 when he must have been very young, I can't understand how he came to abandon poetry for criticism. It is quite mature in firm grip of the subject, and has no youthful faults of redundancy, rhetoric, exaggeration, ornament for ornament's sake, affectation, and so forth."
In a letter dated June 24, 1874, after referring to the notice in the Academy of the "City of Dreadful Night," he adds, "I have just written to the editor thanking him and his critic, and saying that it seems to me a very brave act on the part of a respectable English periodical, to spontaneously call attention to an atheistical writing (less remote than, say, Lucretius), treating it simply and fairly on its literary merits, without obloquy or protesting cant."
I quote the following passage from a letter dated January 9, 1876, because it gives his answer to some censures that have been passed upon his use of certain words in his poems:—
"With regard to Mr. Bullen's criticisms on 'Our Ladies of Death,'—criticisms which really flatter me, as any man's work is really praised by such examination,—I must hold myself right. The only English Dictionary I have by me is a school one, but as such little likely to venture on neologisms; moreover, it is very good of its kind, being Reid's of Edinburgh. This gives Sombre, Sombrous, dark, gloomy; Tenēbrous, Tenēbrious, dark, gloomy, obscure (and, of course, Tenebrious implies Tenebriously); Ruth, pity, sorrow; Ruthful, merciful, sorrowful; Ruthfully, sadly, sorrowfully. The huge ​Worcester Webster, into which I looked a day or two after your letter came, agrees as to tenebrious and ruth; I forgot to look in it for sombrous. But as to ruth, I used it in the common sense of pity, not that of sadness and sorrow. When I wrote—
I meant to parry the pity of others, not to parry my own sadness, which, indeed, jest and laugh must intensify instead of parrying. My thought was much like that of Beatrice, 'The Cenci,' Act v., Sc. 3:—
And from the light indifferent multitude, as you must know, curses are even less unwelcome than pity when we are profoundly suffering. I looked into the Dictionaries not knowing whether their authority would sustain or condemn me, as I am used to trust in careful writing to my own sense of what is right; this, naturally, having been modified and formed by reading of good authors. Even had the Dictionaries condemned me, I should in these cases have been apt to assert my own correctness; in many others I should be ready to yield without contest. In the 'City of Dreadful Night' I used tenebrous instead of tenebrious; just as good writers use, as it happens to suit them, either funeral or funereal, sulphurous or sulphureous (Shelley often in 'Hellas'), &c. You will think that I have troubled you with many words on a very little matter. . . . As it is now just ​eleven P.M., and I have much to do to-morrow, I will conclude in pity for myself if not in ruth for you."
The next extract is from a letter dated November 1, 1878:—
"I am very sorry but scarcely surprised that things are not very flourishing with you just now. You are correct in supposing that it is ditto with me. With the natural depression of trade infinitely aggravated during the past two years by the wretched impolicy of our Jewish-Jingo misgovernment, it cannot be well with anybody but arm-manufacturers, exchange speculators, and Hebrew adventurers; and things seen likely to grow much worse before they get better. . . . The 'Improvisations' I shall be delighted to see. It is so scarce that I have never yet been able to come across it, and have never seen any mention of it save that by Rossetti in his supplementary chapter (a very fine one) to the 'Life of Blake.' It is not even in the British Museum, having been printed for private circulation only, if I remember aright. I should think it would be a real treasure to any of Wilkinson's few admirers; for, as you know, the fewer the devotees of any man or thing, the more enthusiastic."
The following is from a letter dated December 23, 1878:—
Many thanks for the 'Improvisations.' . . . A brief glance at it, and perusal of the remarkable note at the ​end, make me anticipate its study with unusual interest. . . . Just lately, and in these days I am pretty busy for Fraser; and well for me that it is so, for I have not earned a penny save from him the whole year. There is more work to do on the Tobacco Duties; and also verse and prose for the Christmas Card, but not so much as last year, nor offering such genial opportunities and associations as Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims. The subject this time is the Pursuit of Diva Nicotina, in imitation of Sir Noel Paton's Pursuit of Pleasure. Paton is a good painter and poet too, but of the ascetic-pietistic school, or with strong leanings to it."
The next quotation is from a letter dated October 19, 1879:—
"I can still but barely manage to keep head above water—sometimes sinking under for a bit. You see what I do for Cope. I have not succeeded in getting any other work except on the Liberal, and this is of small value. . . . I thank you for keeping the Whitman for me: I sold it with other books when hard up. In the meantime I have the latest 2 vol. edition in hand from Fraser, who has requested some articles on him when Tobacco Legislation, &c., will allow. I mean to begin him now in the evenings at home, as the Legislation can be done only in the Museum. He may occupy such intervals in the paper as did the Wilson and Hogg, both done by request: the 'Richard Feverel' was on my ​own suggestion. George Meredith, to whom I sent a copy, wrote me a very flattering because very high-minded letter. He has seen the 'City;' and though by no means sanguine with such a public as ours, he thinks it should float a volume. The admiration of so many excellent literary judges really surprises me. . . . All this about myself because I have nothing else to write about, going nowhere and seeing no one."
July 1, 1880, he writes:—
"Last Tuesday I spent with Meredith; a real red-letter day in all respects. He is one of those personalities who need fear no comparisons with their best writings."
Here is a passage from a letter dated January 5, 1881:—
"With Mr. Wright and Percy I went to George Eliot's funeral. It was wretched tramping through the slush and then standing in the rain for about three-quarters of an hour, with nothing to see but dripping umbrellas. I was disappointed by there being any chapel service at all. At the grave old Dr. Sadler mumbled something, of which only two or three words could be distinguished by us only a couple of yards behind him."
During the last two years of his life Thomson was frequently at Leicester, where he had many good friends, of whom Mr. J. W. Barrs was perhaps the most zealous. Here he was comparatively happy, as the following extract from a letter dated June 21, 1881, will show:—
"We are here four miles from Leicester, with railway station a few minutes off, in a pleasant villa surrounded ​by shrubbery, lawn, meadow and kitchen garden. Host and hostess (sister) are kindness itself, as are all other Leicester friends. We lead the most healthy of lives, save for strong temptations to over-feeding on excellent fare, and host's evil and powerfully contagious habit of sitting up till about two A.M. smoking and reading or chatting. I now leave him to his own wicked devices at midnight or as soon after as possible. Despite the showery weather we have had good drives and walks (country all green and well-wooded), jolly little picnics, and lawn-tennis ad infinitum. (N.B.—Lawn-tennis even more than lady's fine pen responsible for the uncouthness of this scrawl.) In brief we have been so busy with enjoyment, that this is the first note I have accomplished (or begun) in the seventeen days. . . . P.S.—Grass and ground too wet for lawn-tennis this morning, else this scrawl might not have got scrawled."
It will most likely occur to the reader that there is some degree of incongruity between the passage just quoted, and the general tenor of the narrative. But in truth the change was so great from his solitary existence in London to the comfort and cheerfulness of his life in Leicester, that it is no wonder if he became for a time comparatively happy. In London he lodged in one narrow room, which was bed-room and sitting-room in one, and where he could hardly help feeling a sense of poverty and isolation. A morning spent at the British Museum, an afternoon walk through the streets, and an evening passed in reading or writing: such was the usual course of his daily life in London. Visits to or from his few London friends sometimes varied the monotony of ​his existence; and now and then he would go to a concert or to the Italian Opera, for he was passionately fond of music. In London, in short, it was almost impossible for him to forget his sorrows: in Leicester the kind attentions of his friends, their cheerful pastimes and lively conversation, only allowed him to remember them at intervals.
I have already said that it was not Thomson's custom to parade his sorrows in public; but that he was, on the contrary, uncommonly reserved about his private feelings. It would never have occurred to a casual acquaintance that he was one whose existence was a burden that he could scarcely endure. When with friends he was an unusually pleasant companion. He conversed easily and fluently on whatever subject might happen to be started, and frequently gave utterance to a happy jest, or an epigrammatic phrase. There was not the slightest degree of assumption in his manner, nor did he ever allude to his own writings, except when he was invited to do so. But his wounds were not the less painful, because he did not exhibit them in public; and of their deep and permanent character, I had once a striking proof. We were talking together lightly and cheerfully enough, when a casual remark which I made chanced to recall the memory of his lost love. Well do I remember the effect upon him: how his voice changed, and how tears started to his eyes!
I have already related the circumstances under which his first volume of poems was ultimately published by Messrs. Reeves & Turner. This was in April 1880, and the book was on the whole favourably received by ​the press and the public. Perhaps the most generous and unstinted recognition of the interest and importance of the poems was in an article by Mr. G. A. Simcox in the Fortnightly Review. Naturally enough the tone and spirit of the "City of Dreadful Night" came in for a good deal of adverse criticism, although the power and excellence of the writing were generally acknowledged. One acute critic, whose penetration is not usually so much at fault, expressed an opinion that the intensely gloomy character of the poem did not represent its author's real feelings, but was merely assumed in accordance with a prevailing poetical fashion. Thomson must have smiled rather bitterly on reading this, for if ever there was a work which expressed with entire sincerity its author's mind and feelings, that work was "The City of Dreadful Night." It was the outcome of long years of suffering and despair, of ceaseless yearnings, fruitless regrets, and continual ponderings upon the mysteries of human life. True or not to humanity at large-and doubtless, to make it true universally, the dreadful gloom would have to be lightened with many rays of sunlight—it was at least a true expression of the author's thoughts and experiences; and it is to be feared that his case was by no means singular, and that the inhabitants of "The City of Dreadful Night" are far more numerous than comfortable and respectable optimism has any conception of. The poem must always remain unsurpassed as a picture of the night-side of human nature: that there is another side Thomson was well aware, and he is perhaps as successful in depicting the bright as the dark aspect of life.
​The measure of success which attended the issue of his two volumes of poems naturally gave him much pleasure: but it was too late for that or any change in his circumstances to benefit him much. The same degree of success, had it been obtained ten or twelve years earlier, would doubtless have had the happiest results. How unfortunate it was that appreciation of his gifts came so late will be seen when it is considered that for nearly or quite seven years (1875 to 1881) he almost entirely discontinued the writing of verse. How much might have been accomplished in those years, if only he had been encouraged by the sunshine of success! But his spirit was now in a great degree broken, his energies were relaxed, and the tough constitution that had enabled him to endure so long a pilgrimage of sorrow, was at last breaking down. For these results I am bound to say that his misfortunes were not alone responsible. That he should become during these latter years a victim of intemperance was hardly surprising, however much it was to be deplored. His early loss, his poverty, his comparative failure as an author, the sense of isolation and despair that possessed him, and which at night deprived him even of sleep; that he sought refuge from the consciousness of such miseries as these in the temporary forgetfulness derived from drink, could not be wondered at. Let the reader peruse the poems of "Mater Tenebrarum" and "Insomnia," both of which depict with ​absolute fidelity his night thoughts and experiences, and he will have some idea of the causes which impelled him with irresistible power to drown thought and remembrance in the Lethe of alcohol. Yet it must not be thought that he yielded unresistingly to its temptations. Against it he would strive hard, and for a time perhaps successfully, so that he would seem to have overcome his enemy: but the spell would at last prove too powerful for him, and he would remain enslaved by it for a season, until he was left at last utterly exhausted and unnerved. To see him when he was in this condition was a most painful sight, and it used to afflict me in no ordinary degree. I must be excused, however, from dwelling further upon this painful subject: let it suffice to say, that he became more and more a victim of intemperance, until it ultimately hastened, if it did not cause his death. Of the last few months of his life I need not say much. The reader will see by the dates affixed to the poems in the early part of this volume, that his poetic powers had only been lying dormant, and that the vein of his genius was by no means exhausted. The poems here printed will, I think, bear comparison with the best of his earlier productions, with the possible exception of "Weddah and Om-el-Bonain." Even this masterpiece of narrative poetry he might have equalled or surpassed if he had lived, for he stated that he had conceived the story of another poem which he thought would give full scope to his powers. But this, like much else, was to remain unaccomplished: he was taken ill on June 1, 1882, and being removed to University College Hospital, died there on June 3. He was buried at Highgate cemetery, ​in the same grave as his friend Austin Holyoake, on June 8.
I borrow from Mr. Flaws' excellent essay on Thomson the following description of his personal appearance and manner:—
"He looked like a veteran scarred in the fierce affrays of life's war, and worn by the strain of its forced marches. His close-knit form, short and sturdy, might have endured any amount of mere roughings, if its owner had thought it worth a care. It is rare to find so squarely massive a head, combining mathematical power with high imagination in so marked a degree. Hence the grim logic of fact that gives such weird force to all his poetry. You could see the shadow that 'tremendous fate' had cast over that naturally buoyant nature. It had eaten great furrows into his broad brow, and cut tear-tracks downwards from his wistful eyes, so plaintive and brimful of unspeakable tenderness as they opened wide when in serious talk. And as he discussed the affairs of the day, how the poet would merge in the keen-sighted trenchant critic, whose vocabulary was built up of the pure and racy English of all the centuries, always striking yet never pedantic!"
One reflection will probably have suggested itself to the reader of the foregoing sketch. Was not—he may perhaps ask—the fact that Thomson allowed his whole existence to be blighted by the death of a young girl, evidence of an essentially weak or defective character? To be endowed—like Burns for instance—with passions and affections of extraordinary force, is undoubtedly a misfortune, and ​the possessor of them, if he is capable of sometimes reaching the highest heaven of enjoyment, must atone for this by frequently descending into the deepest hell of despair: but it would be absurd enough on the part of those whose feelings are dull, and whose passions are torpid, if they claimed, on those scores, to possess the more perfect temperament. No doubt if Thomson had been ruled by reason alone, he would have quickly forgotten his "only love," and his life would have been happier, or, at least, would have been something altogether different from what it was. But in the lives of most men (and women too) reason plays a very small part compared with the part played by the feelings or affections. If we were ruled by reason alone we should cease to regret a parent, a lover, or a friend, the instant they were cold in death: but one who could do so would scarcely be regarded as human at all. As grief for the departed is natural to us, in what way shall we set bounds to it? Those whom we love or respect but little, we do not long grieve for; but what length of time can assuage our grief for those whom we have loved with the whole strength of our hearts? Thomson, being a poet, was therefore a man of far more than ordinary intensity of feeling. What Mr. Palgrave has said of Shakespeare (in relation to the "Sonnets") applies equally well to Thomson:—
"There is a weakness and folly in all excessive and misplaced affection,' says Mr. Hallam. . . . Such excess, however, as it must appear in the light of common day, is perhaps rarely wanting among the gifts of great genius. The poet's nature differs in degree so much from other men's, that we might almost speak of it as a ​difference in kind. This, in the sublime language of the 'Phædrus,' is that 'possession and ecstasy with which the Muses seize on a plastic and pure soul, awakening it and hurrying it forth like a Bacchanal in the ways of song.' A sensitiveness unexperienced by lesser men exalts every feeling to a range beyond ordinary sympathies. Friendship blazes into passion. The furnace of love is seven times heated. An imperious instinct demands that Beauty and the adoration of Beauty shall, somehow, spite of human faults and faithlessness, and the grave itself, secure the 'eternity promised by our ever-living poet.'"
No critical estimate of Mr. Thomson's place in English literature can be attempted here: for I have neither the right nor the ability to make such an estimate. A poet should be judged by his peers: and I have often felt no small degree of indignation when I have read a review by some anonymous or obscure scribbler, who, all unconscious of his own intellectual deficiencies, has presumed to lecture Mr. Browning or Mr. Swinburne in the style adopted by a pedagogue towards a dull scholar. But I will not deny myself the pleasure of quoting some words relating to Thomson from the pen of the Rev. J. W. Ebsworth, a gentleman whose knowledge of our old poetical literature is certainly unsurpassed, even if it is not unequalled: and who, if he had not devoted himself to the labour of bringing to light the works of others, must have made a reputation as a poet for himself. He says:—"Of his genius, true and strong, there can be no question whatever among competent judges. If we except Browning, there is no poet living who can be considered as his ​superior. With his theological or anti-theological views I had no quarrel; I only regretted some few utterances (chiefly in foot-notes) which might prove hindrances to his being generally accepted. Such things did much to retard the general recognition of Shelley's genius."
Looking back upon what I have written, I feel how inadequately I have performed my task. I only attempted it because of my earnest desire to see some degree of justice done to the memory of one whom I admired indeed as an author, but whom, in an even greater degree, I loved as a man. The world is strangely blind to its great men, and a Shelley, a Wordsworth, a Browning, or a George Meredith has to die, or at least to labour unnoticed for many years, before the great British public begins to discover that a splendid addition has been made to its most glorious endowment. If I have done a little to hasten the coming of the time when Thomson's great gifts shall be appraised at their true value, my labour has not been in vain, and I shall not go unrewarded.
I must not conclude without thanking most heartily my friend Arthur H. Bullen, Esq., who has kindly looked over the proofs of the present volume, and to whom I am also indebted for some valuable suggestions. Nor must I omit to mention Thomson's old friend, Mr. John Grant, whom I have to thank for having furnished very much of the information upon which I have founded the present memoir.
* ↑ He once gave me an amusing account of the sufferings he underwent in committing to memory what is known as the Assembly's Shorter Catechism, and of how he used to lie awake in bed shivering at the thought that he would have to learn another, longer and harder even than that.
* ↑ "Shelley" was the title of one of his earliest poems. It was written in 1855. It contains some fine passages; and I have omitted it from the present volume rather from want of space than from any misgiving as to its excellence.
* ↑ It is worth noting that one of his articles was found to be too audacious even for the uncompromising National Reformer. After two instalments of it had appeared, the third and concluding portion was suppressed.
* ↑ William Maccall, author of "Elements of Individualism," and of many other remarkable, but unappreciated works.
* ↑ Italy.
* ↑ Timoleon's. See Plutarch's Lives; whence the simile in the following line.
* ↑ Bysshe Vanolis. "Bysshe" was chosen because of Thomson's reverence for Shelley, and "Vanolis" as an anagram of Novalis, the assumed name of the German mystic and poet, Friedrich von Hardenberg. It will be remembered that the life and character of the latter were largely affected by the untimely death of a young girl to whom he was deeply attached. Hardenberg, however, was not so inconsolable as Thomson, for he formed another attachment in no long time after his first love's death. A much closer parallel to Thomson's story was that of another German poet, Ernst Schultze; but of him Thomson knew nothing until a few months before his death.
* ↑ "Improvisations from the Spirit," by Dr. Garth Wilkinson. Mr. Thomson was a warm admirer of Dr. Wilkinson's writings, and under the title of "A Strange Book," he published a series of articles on the "Improvisations" in the pages of the Liberal, a monthly magazine.
* ↑ This refers to two large coloured plates which were issued with the Tobacco Plant, for which Thomson wrote explanatory and descriptive matter in verse and prose.
* ↑ Whitman's "Leaves of Grass."
* ↑ "Vane's Story, and other Poems," was issued in October 1880. "Essays and Phantasies," which was issued in 1881, had only a qualified success. Only a few critics recognised the great excellence of Thomson's matter and style in prose.
* ↑ Published in the Secular Review.