BOOKS.

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.*

IN the later years of the last century, and in the early :years of the present, it was the habit of devout people to keep diaries of their spiritual 'experiences. Their struggles in the Slough of Despond, their temptations in Vanity Fair, their loss of faith in the dungeon of Giant Despair, the frailties of the flesh, the daily hindrances to their progress on the road to the Celestial City, were mourned over in these ,confessions, which were finally published for the 'benefit of future pilgrims. This habit of dwelling on moods and feelings was an indication of spiritual feebleness rather than of strength, and led, though no doubt unconsciously, to much which was exaggerated in statement and false in sentiment.

We are often reminded of these effusions while reading -the interesting, but painfully self-conscious, confessions of Mr. Symonds. His biographer, who does what he has elected to do with a skill worthy of all praise, keeps so modestly in the background, that the three main sources of the reader's knowledge are derived from his friend's own letters, diaries, and autobiography. The letters want the ease of unconscious art, and are, as Mr. Symonds himself admits, literary exercises. "I have found it useful," he says, • John Addington Symonds: a 13iography compiled from his Papers and Corre- spondence. By Horatio F. Brown. With Portraits and other Illastrat:ons. vols. London: John Nkomo.

"after writing a good letter to a friend, to copy it for my own use into a note-book with alterations and improvements. This plan combines the epistle and the diary, and is, of course, a higher exercise in style than either." This is possible, but it entirely destroys the charm to be found in letters not written for effect. The Diaries and Autobiography reveal apparently the inmost thoughts of the writer, who seems to be surveying himself throughout with a painful surprise and curiosity at the discoveries which he makes. There is much that is morbid in the process, but it is not the less attractive, coming as it does from a man sorely tried in body and spirit. And it must be added that Mr. Symonds's egotism was not accompanied by any lack of sympathy with others.

To untiring energy and an ambition to act nobly he united the keenest interest in all that life has to yield, a deep affection for those whom he loved, and a large-hearted and wisely directed charity.

The son of a distinguished and wealthy physician at Bristol, his childhood was not a happy one. His mother died when he was four years old, and "all he had of her" were the leaves gathered from her grave. Writing more than forty years afterwards, he says : "I used to put them into a little book of texts called Daily Food which had belonged to her, and which I read every night, and still read at all hours of the day." We may add here the pathetic statement of his daughter that in his last illness "he asked for the small book of prayers which he always had kept near him since he was a child, and which belonged to his mother, and had it with him till he died." The sensitive child suffered from various illusions, and was liable to a kind of trance which occurred at intervals during several years. On one occasion he walked in his sleep, getting up to escape from a corpse which he imagined lay beside him in the bed. At Harrow, Symonds was miserable, he cared little . for sports, and "want of physical and cerebral energy showed itself in a series of depressing ailments." The boy felt crushed and mortified, and although he had some good friends there, and was not without great influence in his house, left the school without regret. At Oxford, he began his career badly, having been "ploughed in Smalls for Greek grammar," but the salutary snub did him good ; he gained a first-class in Moderations, and in the same term won the Newdigate prize for a poem on the Escorial. Reading for the "final schools" his health gave way, and be was allowed to go down to the home be loved so well at Clifton. On returning to Balliol, Symonds, to quote his biographer's words, "was in" the throes of an intense religions contention," and, it may be added, was tremulously alive to the evils of the sceptical state. "Non- recognition of God," he writes in his Diary, "exposes one to temptation, and may lead to a life of careless sinfulness ; " and he makes a rule not to talk of religious doubts, finding it so exciting to his mind that he was "always exhausted by it" The work and intellectual atmosphere of Oxford acted too powerfully on his nerves. Some rest was gained by a foreign tour and other changes, but a return to the old life brought the old troubles, and he complained that a cloud was over his brain. His feelings found free vent in conversations with Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, who confessed how she also had at one time suffered from doubt, although she never lost her feeling of God, and added that years had brought her faith and love. The Oxford student went away filled with the idea of the noblest womanhood he had ever met.

In May, 1862, Symonds went in for "greats," and supported by sleeping-draught and "pick-me-up," he secured a first. He took his degree in Jane, and while thinking Oxford honours "a poor thing," wrote,—" Yet I can never be too thankful for having been able to give papa so great satisfaction. All the trouble I had was well compensated by his pleasure, and the thought of that is my most solid gain." His family affections were strong ; and on reading all he writes of his father, one is reminded of Dr. Johnson's saying about Pope that "life has among its soothing and quiet comforts, few things better to give than such a son." Ultimately, Symonds gained a Fellow- ship at Magdalen; but before following his career further it may be well to insert one or two graphic sketches from the Autobiography. Professor Jowett became one of the writer's best friends, but the first interview was not encouraging

"I think I took a letter from my father to the great, mysteriously reverenced man. I found him dozing in an armchair over a dying fire He roused himself, looked at the letter, looked at me, and said half dreamily, 'I do not think I know your father:

Then, after an awkward pause, he rose and added, Good-bye, Mr. Symonds.' I had gone with all a boy's trepidation to call on him. I took with me, moreover, something overadded by the shyness which my dependence on my father engendered. This dismissal, therefore, hurt me exceedingly."

Mr. Swinburne has paid a fine tribute to Jowett's love of poetry, and to his candour. What the Master of Balliol said of the poet in his youthful days is thus told in the Diary :—

"Mr. Swinburne is a most curious young man. He used to bring me long and eloquent essays. He had a very remarkable power of language ; but it was all language. I could never find that he was following any line of thought."

Jowett's breakfast parties are said to have been paralysing. "He sat, sipped tea, ate little, stared vacantly. Few spoke. The toast was heard crunching under desperate jaws of youths exasperated by their helplessness and silence. Never- theless, it was a great event to go—although nobody shone, neither host nor guest." And here is an anecdote which shows the expositor and translator of Plato under a different aspect :—

" One evening he said to me, I cannot hear your essay this evening, Mr. Symonds. I have just heard that Clough is dead.' This was the first time, I believe, that the name of Clough reached my ears. Jowett proceeded, 'He was the only man of genius, whom I knew to be a man of genius, that I have seen among the younger men at Balliol."

After taking his degree, Symonds went on the Continent with his father and sister, and at Visp had a painful illness,

which left its marks behind it. There are notes in the Diary about this time showing, as Mr. Brown observes, that a break- down of brain-power was menacing his career. He had horrible dreams. There are complaints of a strained feeling in the head, and of mad, suicidal fancies, from which he prays God to preserve him. The Fellowship at Magdalen, to which he had been elected unanimously, might have relieved this tension of the brain, had not a quondam friend attempted, by garbled letters, to damage his character in the college. The blow brought on a serious attack, which affected him for years, and in the course of them lung-disease was developed. Then we read of many journeys in search of health ; and these wanderings, with some intermission after his marriage, may be said to have been his habit to the end.

Writing of his Autobiography to a friend, Symonds observes that "the years of growth are the most important and need the most elaborate analysis;" and in another letter, he craves pardon for saying so much about himself, since he had been

"living into a personality which was nothing if not self-expres- sive." The character portrayed in the earlier chapters of the

biography, while matured in some respects, is essentially the same throughout. All along the reader will observe the same highly strung and sensitive temperament, the same tendency of the writer to analyse his feelings, the same detestation of moral evil, the same eager aspirations, and, by his own confession, the same want of fixed principles by which all that was best in him might have been guided and confirmed. The changes of his spiritual moods are frankly recorded. He is at once sceptical and emotional, and while discarding Christianity as an historical religion, is unable to escape from its influence. "A man like myself," he writes, "can only lose his religious sentiment because the religious sentiment is weak in the men around him." He "would give a great deal to regain the Christian point of view ; " his human weakness, he says, always clamours for a personal God, the soul of man requires him, and in this struggle of the soul, physical science "perplexes more than it illuminates." He thinks, too, that a sublime system of ethics is capable of being based on the "immeasurably precious hope of ending with this life the ache and languor of existence." Mr. Symonds's belief, it might almost seem, varied with his feel- ing. On listening to the bells of 1884 ringing in the New Year, he writes :—" God is over all. Yes. That is the only word by which a man can live ; " while at another time, he was penetrated with the Cosmic enthusiasm, and found a Gospel in the writings of Walt Whitman. "I felt," he writes, "through him, what it really is to be a member of the universe I sought to worship."

Mr. Symond's physical and mental energy under difficulties that would sap the courage of most men, seems to have been exhaustless. There were times when he was entirely laid aside, but these were rare in comparison with the long periods in which he maintained a dauntless struggle with disease. At Davos, where he spent the most interesting and the busiest years of his life, he devoted himself to literary pursuits with the ardour of a strong man ; but he was never so absorbed in them as to lose his interest in art, in Nature,. and in his fellow-men. "Literature," he writes, "takes a second place in my estimation ; and for this reason, although I have persevered in it for solace and escape from fretting care, I have never been able to regard it very seriously," and he observes, "how trivial any literary successes and achieve- ments are in comparison with the solid good things of a comely and contented existence ; how little talent, or even genius, weighs in the scale against character, strength of will, goodness and tranquillity of mind." Many a confirmed invalid has led a vigorously intellectual life; but Symonds, with both lungs diseased, performed also in his mountain- home the feats of an athlete. He took long walks, which, as Mr. Brown observes, would have proved no slight tax on the resources of most men, and we are told how, after three

days on the bills, he spent a night in ascending the Schwartzhorn, which is more than 10,000 ft. high ; how, as president of a tobogganing race, he would be out through a

long day, standing for hours in the snow, talking all the time, and then entertaining his friends till midnight; and how he drove for seven days in sledges, until he became "sunk below the surface of vitality in a deep sea of cold."

Take another illustration, and many such might be given, of the courage (or the rashness) with which he risked his life.

I have lost my power of living like an invalid. The con- stant effort of a lifetime to control my health and create the best conditions for repelling disease, has worn my faculties of en- durance out. So I do things now which are not prudent. I drove yesterday to a village two hours away from here ; attended a peasant theatre, which was tremendous fun; dined with three good companions, Swiss ; and drove home at midnight in an open sledge under the most glorious moon and icy wind from the glaciers. This is not a cure for bronchitis. And again, to-day„ I started with my girls and our toboggans, and ran a course or& four miles, crashing at lightning speed over the snow and ice. We did the journey in about eleven minutes, and I came in breathless, dead-beat, almost fainting. Then home in the railway with open windows, and a mad crew of young men and maidens excited by this thrilling exercise."

To the last days of his life, when in the companionship of his daughter, be travelled in Southern Italy and found his final resting-place in Rome, Mr. Symonds displayed the same energy, going everywhere and inspecting everything as though he were in fall health. "He loved life," it is said, "and he never ceased to live while it lasted." The biography,

we may add, is beautifully printed, and as a book has but one defect,—the want of an index.