The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1877-03-24
Charles Kingsley The Dead Author.

No tribute to the dead is so tender and
pathetic, and at the same time 30 true, as
that offered by the hand of afllction. Such
an one has been laid upon the grave of
Charles Kingsley by his wife of more than
thirty years, and the tens of thousands of
readers and lovers of the dead author who
knew him only from bis works are now
enabled to know the man himself as he
was-pure, gentle, loving and yet in his
way strong and aggressive. The volume
which has just appeared from the press of
Scribner, Armstrong & Co., New York, en-
titled "Charles Kingsley his letters and
memoirs of his life edited by his wife,
can hardly be called biography.
In 1886 he entered Kings college, Lon
don, and two yearS later went up to Mag
dalen college, Cambridge, where he gained
a scholarship. In 1880, on vacation with
his fathers family in Oxfordshire, where a
happy two months were spent, he met with
his future wife, Miss Fanny Grenful. At
that time he was full of religious doubts,
and his face, says his biographer, bore
witness to his state of mind.
1t had sad, longing expression, too, as
If he had all his life been looking for a
sympathy he had never found, rest which
he would never attain in this world. His
peculiar character had not been understood
hitherto, and his heart had been half
asleep. 1t woke up now and never slept
again. For the first time he could spe Ak
with perfect freedom and be met
with ans werlng sympathy. And grad
ually, as the new friendship (Which yet
setmed old-from the first more of a
recognition than an acquaintanct) deep
ened into intimacy, evey doubt, every
thought, every failing, every siu, IS he
would cal 1t, was laid bare. Counsel
was asked and given, all things in earth
aud heaven discussed, and as new hopes
dawned, the look OF hard defiance gave
way to wonderful humility and tender
ness, which we're his characterlstcs with
those who understood him, to his dying
day. He was just like his own Lancelot in
"Yeast" in that summer of 1891 bold
thinker, bold rider, most chivalrous
gentleman, sad, shy and serious habitually;
In conversation at one moment bril-
liant and impassionate, the next re-
served and unapproachable by
turns attracting and repelllng, but pouring
fourth to the friend whom he could trust
stores of thought and information on
every sort of unexpected subjects which
seemed boundless. 1t was a fess. to the
imagination and intellect to hold commun.
ION with Charles Kingsley, even at the
age of twenty; the orig nslity with which
he treated a subj .ct was startling, and mis-
genius illuminated every object it ap-
preached, whether he spoke of 'the de-
licious shower of those aspen leaves" on the
nearest tree, or of the dtepest laws of hu-
mainly and the controversies of the
day. Two months of such intercourse
passed only too quickly, and though
from this time for the next four years and
half the friends met but seldom, and cor
responded at rare intervals, new life had
dawned for both, which neither absence
nor sorrow, difference of religious opin-
ions, opposition Of friends, or adverse cir
cumsiances could eXtinguish. Before he
left Oxfordshire he was so far shaken in
his doubts that he promised to read his
Bible once more, to pray, to open his heart
to the light, If the light would but come.
All, however, was dark for u time, and the
conflict between hopes and fears for the
future, aud between faith aud unbelief, was
30 fierce and bitter that when he re-
turned TO Cambridge he became reck-
less, and nearly gave up all for lost.
He read little; went in for excitement of
every kind-boating, hunting, driving,
fencing, boxing, duck-shooting in the fens
-aoylhing to deaden the remembrance of
the happy past which just then promised
no future. More than once he resolved to
leave Cambridge and go out to the Far
West and live as wild prairie hunter
To this he refers when for the first time
he found himself on the prairies of Ameri-
ca in 1864. But through all God kept him
in those dark days for work he little
dreamed of