Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-07-18
ChnrIes KinnsIeN.

/ Twas present at a meeting not long since
where Mr.. Kingsley was one of the principal
speakers. The meeting was held in London,
The audience was a peculiarly cockney audi
enee, and Charles Kingsley is personally little
known to the public of the metropolis.
Therefore when he began to speak there was
quite a little thrill Of wonder and something
like ineredulity through the listening benches.
Could that, people near me asked, really be
Charles Kingsley, the novelist, the poet, the
scholar, the aristocrat, the gentleman, the pulpit
orator, the "soldierprieSt, the apostle OF mus
cular Christianity? Yes, that was indeed he.
Rather tall, very angular, surprisingly awk-
wark, with thin, staggering legs, a Ratchet face
adorned with scraggy gray whiskers, faculty
for falling into the most ungainly attitudes, and
making the most hideOus contortiOns of visase
and frame; with a rough provincial accent
and an uncouth way of speaking, which
would be set down for absurd caricature on the
boards of a comic theatre; such was the APP
pearance which the author of "Gaucus" and
"HYpatia" presented to his startled audience
Since Brougham's time nothing so ungainly,
odd, and ludicrous had been displayed upon an
English platform. Needless TO say, Charles
Kingsley has not the eloquence of Brougham.
But he has a robust and energetic plain-speak-
ing which soon struck home to the heart OF the
meeting. He conquered his audience. Those
who at first could hardly keep from laughing;
those who, not knowing the speaker, wondered
whether be was not mad or in liquor; those who
heartily disliked his general principles and his
public attitude were alike won over, long before
he had finished, by his bluff and blunt earnest
ness and his transparent sincerity. The subject
was one which concerned the serial suffering
of the poor. Mr.. Kingsley approached it
broadly and boldly, talking with a grand disre-
gard for logic and political economy, some
times startling the more squeamish of his audi
ence by the biblican trankness of his descrp-
tions and his language, but, think, convincing
has ha cn,tpd OF hon nd QN
planning unconsciously to many how it happen
ed that one endowed with sympathies so
humane and liberal should so often
have distinguished himself as the cham
pion of the stupidest systems and
the harshest expressions. Anybody! eould
see that the strong impelling force OF the
speakers character was an emotional one; that
sympathy and not reason, feeling rather than
logic, instinct rather than observation, would
govern his utterances. There are men in whom,
no matter how robust and masculine their per-
Sonal character, "a disproportonate amount OF the
feminine element seems TO have somehow found
a place These men will usually see things not
as they really are, but as they are reflected
through some personal prejudice or emotion.
They will generally spring to conclusions, obey
sudden impulses and instincts, ignore evidence
and be very Thorough" and sweeping In all
their judgments. When they are right they are
like the young lady in the song-very. very
good; but like her. too, when they happen to
be wrong they are "horrid." Of these men the
author of "Alton Locke" is a remarkable illus
tration. 1t seems odd TO describe the eXpounder
of the creed of Muscular Christianity as one en-
dowed with too much of the feminine element.
But for all his vigor of speech and his rough
voice, Mr.. Charles Kingsley is as surely femi.
nine in his way OF reasoning, his likes and dis
likes, his impulses and his prejudices, as Harriet
Martneau is masculine in her intellect and
George Sand in her emotions-JuStin Nc Corthy
in August GALAXY.