The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford, Edited by his friend Reuben Shapcott

ets just then beginning to creep over the unoccupied ground between Camden Town and Haverstock Hill, near the Chalk Farm turnpike gate. To his address I betook myself, and found him not at home. He, l

He advised me to take a bed in the house where he

r with assumed indifference. I could not have trusted myself to attempt it. When I had been lying alone and awake at night, I had thought of all the endless miles of hill and valley that lay outside my window, separating me from the one house in which I coul

being brought to the mouth of hell, was forced to put up his sword, and could do no other than cry, O Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul, he heard a voice going before him and saying, Though I walk through

wonders! (I ca

be preserved i

et with here!

from it hath

d no higher. I met with several refusals, some of them not over-polite, and the degradation-for so I felt it-of wandering through the streets and suing for employment cut me keenly. I remember one man in particular, who spoke to me with the mechanical brutality with which probably he replied to a score of similar applications every week. He sat in a little glass box at the end of a long dark room lighted with gas.

passion-and this was my habit, not from any respectable motive of consideration for the person rebuked, but partly because I am timid, and partly because I shrink from giving pain. This man said with perfect ease what I could not have said unless I had been wrought up to white heat. With all my dislike to him, I envied him: I envied his complete certainty; for although his language was ha

h an interest which surprised me. He took me into a little back shop, and after hearing patiently what I wanted, he asked me somewhat abruptly what I thought of the miracles in the Bible. This was a curious question if he wished to understand my character; but his mind so constantly revolved in one circl

he miracle was a very intense statement of a divine truth; in fact, a truth which was felt with a more than common intensity seemed to take naturally a miraculous expressio

siness. In order to do this, it would be more economical if I would live in his house, which was too big for him. H

w was nothing but a wide reaching assemblage of chimney-pots. My hours were long-from nine in the morning till seven in the evening; but this I did not mind. I felt that if I was not happy, I was at least protected, and that I was with a man who cared for me, and for whom I cared. The

n I came to know more of Theresa and her uncle. She had yellowish hair which was naturally waved, a big arched head, greyish-blue eyes, so far as I could make out, and a mouth which, although it had curves in it, was compressed and indicative of great force

ondered so many people went to hear him, for I believed him to be a hypocrite, and hypocrisy was one of the easiest of crimes to discover. Theresa,

it, I believe they like it, especially if it is successful. They like the sanction it gives to their own hypocrisy. They like a man to come to th

intain my own position if it happened to be opposed. I always rather tried to see as my opponent saw, and to discover how much there was in him with which I co

istants, and I had to collect books myself. These duties are usually undertaken in large establishments by men specially trained, who receive a low rate of wages and who are rather a rough s

the downs, and for the level stretch by the river towards the sea where I first saw Mardon, but we make too much of circumstances, and the very pressure of London produced a sensibility to whatever loveliness could be apprehended there, which was absent when loveliness was always around me. The stars seen in Oxford Street late one night; a sunset one summer evening from Lamb

athies and antipathies. There was no holy of holies in him, into which one or two of the elect could occasionally be admitted and feel God to be there. He was no temple, but rather a comfortable, hospitable house open to all friends, well furnished with books and pictures, and free to every guest from garret to cellar. H

sely the same social training as men, and should know just what men knew. He was never coarse, but on the other hand he would say things to her in my presence which brought a flame into my face. What the evil consequences o

ovels would not write as if love were the very centre and sum of human existence. A man's life was made up of so much besides lo

m, and there is no mistake about it; it is the great fact of life. What would Shakespeare be without it? and Shakespeare is life. A man, worthy to be named a man, will find the fact of love perpetually confronting him till he reaches old age, and if he be not ruined by worldliness or dissipation, will be troubled by it when he is fifty as much as when he was twenty-five. It is the subject of all subjects. People abuse love, a

d, and she kindled over it because it was an idea. It was impossible, of course, that she should say what she did without some movement of the organ in her breast, but how much share this organ ha

e in my presence of which she was not perfectly master. She particularly liked to play Mozart, and on my asking her once to play a piece of Beethoven, she turned round u

ew ideas about metaphysical matters from authors who contemned metaphysics, and with these he was perfectly satisfied. A stranger listening to him would at first consider him well read, but would soon be undeceived, and would find that these ideas were acquired long ago; that he had never gone behind or below them, and that they had never fructified in him, but were like hard stones, whi

music, for example, was a thing incomprehensible to him, and I do not remember that he ever sat for a quarter of an hour really listening to it. He would read the newspaper or do anything while she was playing. She never resented his inattention, except when he made a noise, and then, without an

teresting. I often asked myself why I found this mode of existence more tolerable than any other I had hitherto enjoyed. I had, it is true, an hour or two's unspeakable peace in the early morning, but, as I ha

was sure she was hard, but I found by the merest accident that nearly all her earnings were given with utmost secrecy to support a couple of poor relatives. Then I thought her self-conscious, but this, when I came to think upon it, seemed a mere word. She was one of those women, and

l to do but talk. Nothing is more tedious than to be in a company assembled for no particular reason, and every host, if he asks more than two persons at the outside, ought to provide some entertainment. Talking is worth nothing unless it is

emory, and her friends cried out at once that she should recite something. She hesitated a little, and then throwing herself back in her chair, began The Lass of Lochroyan. At first she was rather diffident, but she gathered strength as she went on.

be Annie o

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some of th

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n show t

as gude, and

the best

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as in a moment on the floor, shivered into twenty pieces. I happened to be watching her, and felt perfectly sure that the movement of her arm was not accidental, and that her intention was to conceal, by the apparent mishap, an emotion which was increasing and becoming i

ient presentation of a case to myself, and from prompt conviction of insufficiency and inaccuracy by the person to whom I in turn pres

Some books are sold "thirteen as twelve," the thirteenth book being given to the purchaser of twelve, and some are sold "twenty-five as twenty-four." This book was to be sold "twenty-five as twenty-four," accord

saw it, he pointed out to me that I had only half mastered the facts, and that my letter was all wrong. This greatly disturbed me, not only because I had vexed him and disappointed him, but because it was renewed evidence of my weakness. I thought that if I was incapable of get

hlet which Wollaston had in hand. Without unfastening them, he gave them to me, and said that as he had no time to read them himself, I must go upstairs to Theresa's study and read them off with her. Accordingly I went and began to read. She took the manuscript and I took the proo

ot sought for any help; she had done all that ought to be done. She had unfastened my collar and had sponged my face with cold water. The first thing I saw as I gradually recovered

ch a man cannot live; and that now I found I was useless, even to the best friends I had ever known, and that the meanest clerk in the city would serve them better than I did. I was beside myself, and I threw myself on my knees, burying my face in Theresa's lap and sobbing convulsively. She di

nd for that matter, nor am I, but let me say this to you, that you are altogether mistaken about yourself. The meanest clerk in the city could not take

, and was told that Miss Wollaston had been there and had paid herself for the rectification of the mistake, giving special injunctions that no notice of it was to be given to her uncle. I sh

ned visit to a friend at a distance. I had a mind to write to her; but I felt as I have often felt before in great crises, a restraint which was gentle and incomprehensible, but nevertheless unmistakable. I suppose it is not what would be called conscience, as conscience is supposed to decide solely between right an

resa, my love for Mary continued unabated. Had it been otherwise, had my affection for Mary grown dim, I should not ha

r father was ill, and could do nothing but read. Wollaston published free-thinking books, and Mardon had noticed in an advertisement the name of a book which he particularly wished to see. Accordingly he sen

o be. There was no virulent disease of any particular organ, but he was slowly wasting away from a

he man does not continue, but something else, a totally different person. I believe in the survival of life and thought. People think is not enough. They say they want the survival of their personality. It is very difficult to express any conjecture upon the matter

a weakness or two, and one was, that he did not want to die in London or be buried there. So we got him down to Sandgate near Hythe, and procured lodging for

fore the morning the end must come. Mardon was perfectly conscious, in no pain, and quite calm. He was just able to speak. When I went into his bedroom, he smiled, and without any preface or int

What a sunrise it was! For about half-an-hour before the sun actually appeared, the perfectly smooth water was one mass of gently heaving opaline lustre. Not a sound was to be heard, and over in the south-east hung the planet Venus. Death was in the chamber, but the surpassing sple

uld far rather be alone, and that it would not be proper for me to remain. The woman of the house in which the lodgings w

cane speed great masses of continuous cloud, which mingled earth and heaven. I thought of all the ships which were on the sea in the night, sailing under the serene stars which I had seen rise and set; I thought of Mardon lying dead, and I thought of Mary. The simultan

stency should crown the career of one who, all through life, had been so completely self-accordant. She could not bear that he should be buried with a ceremony w

ice," such as it was. It was of the simplest kind. The body was taken to the side of the grave, and before it was lowered a few words were said, calling to mind all the virtues of him whom we had lost. These the speake

be true,-but, after all, I can only accept the fact of death in silence, as we accept the loss of youth and all other calamities. We are able to see that the arrangements which we should make, if we had the control of the universe, would be more absurd than those which prevail now. We are able to see that an eternity of life in one particular form, with one particular set of relationships

in vain. Possibly some day I may be able to recover it. My friend discontinued his notes for some years, and consequently the c

less than a month she had gone. Her father's peculiar habits had greatly isolated him, and Miss Mardon had scarcely any friends. Rutherford went to

ing was cast upon him, there it remained without hope, and without any effort being made to remove it. He only began to recover when he was forced to give up work altogether and take a long holiday. To

it. A crisis seemed to take a turn just then, and he became less involved in his old speculations, and more devoted to other pursuits. I fancy that somethin

ime to sally forth some distance from town and spend the whole live-long day upon the downs and in the green lanes of Surrey. Both of them had to work hard during the week. Rutherford, who had learned shorthand when he was

s from looking up to the blue depths between the stars at night; as if we were to determine that nature required correcting in this respect, and that we ought to be so constructed as not to be able to see anything but the earth and what lies on it. Still, these things in a measure ceased to worry him, and the long conflict died away grad

ose who read his story will think him nothing but a mere egoist, selfish and self-absorbed. Morbid he may have been, but selfish he was not. A more perfect friend I never knew, nor one more capable of complete abandonment to a pe