VIII
SUMMER TRIPS TO EUROPE
ON two occasions I have spent the summer vacation in Europe, chiefly in England. In 1886, my wife and I went abroad, with the purpose of dividing the summer between London and the cathedral towns. In 1891, Mr. Hazard and I went to London as delegates to the first Pan-Congregational Council, and afterwards went to the Baths at Wildungen in Waldeck, and to the Wagner Festival at Bayreuth.
What I am about to write is rather in confirmation of what Henry James said to me in London in reply to my inquiry how he found so great a charm in the life of that city. His answer was that the charm lies in the fact that there one sees so much life. "In Paris," he remarked, "one finds clever men within their limits. Here one sees more of many men and of very marked character."
Though in both visits I was in London only six weeks, and in midsummer, and in no official capacity, I met or heard discourses from a good number of interesting men. This was in part due to the fact that the American Minister, Edward J. Phelps, and his wife were intimate friends of my wife and myself and were in London in 1886.
At their hospitable table we met Robert Browning. He was a short, rather stout man with a cheery face, and was very simple and cordial in manner. However obscure is some of his writing, he was lucid and animated in conversation. He said his living in Italy was due to the delicate health of his wife. He spoke at some length of the stammering public speech of Englishmen, which he thought was due to an excessive consciousness and pride. He said when he was a boy, speeches were common at ordinary dinner parties. He himself had a great aversion to making a speech. He gave an interesting anecdote of the effect once of inability to make a speech. A motion was pending in the House of Lords to alter the old law, which forbade a person charged with murder to have counsel, and so compelled him to defend himself. A venerable peer attempted to advocate allowing such a man to have counsel. He found himself at a loss for words. He could not go on. "You see, my Lords," he said, "my condition. Although I know you are all indulgent to me, you observe I am embarrassed to express myself. Suppose now I were on trial for murder. Any innocent man accused of that crime might be in my plight." The situation was so impressive that his view prevailed.
In answer to our urgent request that he come to our country and meet his many admirers, he gave no encouragement, though he expressed a most grateful appreciation of the favour shown to his works in the United States.
One of the most interesting men I met at the Pan-Congregational Council was Rev. John Brown, D.D., Pastor of the Church of Bedford, in which Bunyan preached, and author of an excellent biography of Bunyan. With him we visited Bunyan's cottage at Elstow. He informed me that Bunyan's family had lived in that village for centuries. He said he knew descendants of Bunyan more than fifty years old, who had never read "Pilgrim's Progress."
Dr. Brown told some stories of the wit of Dr. Magee, the Archbishop of York. Among them were these two. A man, with whom he was discussing, said, "I am not so stupid as I may look." To which the Archbishop replied, "For that give God thanks." When he went to York to be consecrated as Archbishop, some woman passing by him, exclaimed, "What an ugly mouth!" He, overhearing it, said to her, "You are right, madam, but it has made my fortune."
Dr. Brown and other preachers spoke freely of the social disadvantages under which young men and young women in dissenters' families found themselves. He informed me that one Anglican clergyman in his neighbourhood had recently in a sermon or public address declared that persons married by any but an Anglican clergyman were living in adultery. When Dr. Brown called the attention of the clergyman's bishop to this the clergyman was reprimanded.
At a tea given by the Bible Society at their house, I saw what was said to be the largest collection of Bibles in the world, and was told the following story of the origin of that renowned society:
A Welsh girl, named Mary Jones, walked many miles to beg a Bible of a minister. He had none to spare for her. She went home weeping, but on his promise to get one for her, she walked again twenty-five miles to procure it. The minister came to London, told the story, and persuaded men to found the society.