The English,
who had been at first inclined to favour the Taipings, on religious
grounds, were now convinced, on practical grounds, of the necessity of
suppressing them.
who had been at first inclined to favour the Taipings, on religious
grounds, were now convinced, on practical grounds, of the necessity of
suppressing them.
Strachey - Eminent Victorians
But in time this hostility melted away.
Succeeding
generations of favourite pupils began to spread his fame through the
Universities. At Oxford especially, men were profoundly impressed by the
pious aims of the boys from Rugby. It was a new thing to see
undergraduates going to Chapel more often than they were obliged, and
visiting the good poor. Their reverent admiration for Dr. Arnold was no
less remarkable. Whenever two of his old pupils met, they joined in his
praises; and the sight of his picture had been known to call forth, from
one who had not even reached the Sixth, exclamations of rapture lasting
for ten minutes and filling with astonishment the young men from other
schools who happened to be present.
He became a celebrity; he became at last a great man. Rugby prospered;
its numbers rose higher than ever before; and, after thirteen years as
headmaster, Dr. Arnold began to feel that his work there was
accomplished, and that he might look forward either to other labours or,
perhaps, to a dignified retirement. But it was not to be.
His father had died suddenly at the age of fifty-three from angina
pectoris; and he himself was haunted by forebodings of an early death.
To be snatched away without a warning, to come in a moment from the
seductions of this World to the presence of Eternity--his most ordinary
actions, the most casual remarks, served to keep him in remembrance of
that dreadful possibility. When one of his little boys clapped his hands
at the thought of the approaching holidays, the Doctor gently checked
him, and repeated the story of his own early childhood; how his own
father had made him read aloud a sermon on the text 'Boast not thyself
of tomorrow"; and how, within the week, his father was dead. On the
title page of his MS. volume of sermons, he was always careful to write
the date of its commencement, leaving a blank for that of its
completion. One of his children asked him the meaning of this. 'It is
one of the most solemn things I do,' he replied, 'to write the beginning
of that sentence, and think that I may perhaps not live to finish it. '
It was noticed that in the spring of 1842 such thoughts seemed to be
even more frequently in his mind than usual. He was only in his
forty-seventh year, but he dwelt darkly on the fragility of human
existence. Towards the end of May, he began to keep a diary--a private
memorandum of his intimate communings with the Almighty. Here, evening
after evening, in the traditional language of religious devotion, he
humbled himself before God, prayed for strength and purity, and threw
himself upon the mercy of the Most High.
'Another day and another month succeed', he wrote on May 31st. 'May God
keep my mind and heart fixed on Him, and cleanse me from all sin. I
would wish to keep a watch over my tongue, as to vehement speaking and
censuring of others . . . I would desire to remember my latter end to which
I am approaching . . . May God keep me in the hour of death, through Jesus
Christ; and preserve me from every fear, as well as from presumption. '
On June 2nd he wrote, 'Again the day is over and I am going to rest. Oh
Lord, preserve me this night, and strengthen me to bear whatever Thou
shalt see fit to lay on me, whether pain, sickness, danger, or
distress. ' On Sunday, June 5th, the reading of the newspaper aroused
'painful and solemn' reflections . . . 'So much of sin and so much of
suffering in the world, as are there displayed, and no one seems able to
remedy either. And then the thought of my own private life, so full of
comforts, is very startling. ' He was puzzled; but he concluded with a
prayer: 'May I be kept humble and zealous, and may God give me grace to
labour in my generation for the good of my brethren and for His Glory! '
The end of the term was approaching, and to all appearance the Doctor
was in excellent spirits. On June 11th, after a hard day's work, he
spent the evening with a friend in the discussion of various topics upon
which he often touched in his conversation the comparison of the art of
medicine in barbarous and civilised ages, the philological importance of
provincial vocabularies, and the threatening prospect of the moral
condition of the United States. Left alone, he turned to his diary.
'The day after tomorrow,' he wrote, 'is my birthday, if I am permitted
to live to see it--my forty-seventh birthday since my birth. How large a
portion of my life on earth is already passed! And then--what is to
follow this life? How visibly my outward work seems contracting and
softening away into the gentler employments of old age. In one sense how
nearly can I now say, "Vivi". And I thank God that, as far as ambition
is concerned, it is, I trust, fully mortified; I have no desire other
than to step back from my present place in the world, and not to rise to
a higher. Still there are works which, with God's permission, I would do
before the night cometh. '
Dr. Arnold was thinking of his great work on Church and State.
Early next morning he awoke with a sharp pain in his chest. The pain
increasing, a physician was sent for; and in the meantime Mrs. Arnold
read aloud to her husband the Fifty-first Psalm. Upon one of their boys
coming into the room,
'My son, thank God for me,' said Dr. Arnold; and as the boy did not at
once catch his meaning, he added, 'Thank God, Tom, for giving me this
pain; I have suffered so little pain in my life that I feel it is very
good for me. Now God has given it to me, and I do so thank Him for it. '
Then Mrs. Arnold read from the Prayer-book the 'Visitation of the Sick',
her husband listening with deep attention, and assenting with an
emphatic 'Yes' at the end of many of the sentences. When the physician
arrived, he perceived at once the gravity of the case: it was an attack
of angina pectoris. He began to prepare some laudanum, while Mrs. Arnold
went out to fetch the children. All at once, as the medical man was
bending over his glasses, there was a rattle from the bed; a convulsive
struggle followed; and, when the unhappy woman, with the children, and
all the servants, rushed into the room, Dr. Arnold had passed from his
perplexities forever.
There can be little doubt that what he had achieved justified the
prediction of the Provost of Oriel that he would 'change the face of
education all through the public schools of England'. It is true that,
so far as the actual machinery of education was concerned, Dr. Arnold
not only failed to effect a change, but deliberately adhered to the old
system. The monastic and literary conceptions of education, which had
their roots in the Middle Ages, and had been accepted and strengthened
at the revival of Learning, he adopted almost without hesitation. Under
him, the public school remained, in essentials, a conventional
establishment, devoted to the teaching of Greek and Latin grammar. Had
he set on foot reforms in these directions, it seems probable that he
might have succeeded in carrying the parents of England with him. The
moment was ripe; there was a general desire for educational changes; and
Dr. Arnold's great reputation could hardly have been resisted. As it
was, he threw the whole weight of his influence into the opposite scale,
and the ancient system became more firmly established than ever.
The changes which he did effect were of a very different nature. By
introducing morals and religion into his scheme of education, he altered
the whole atmosphere of public-school life. Henceforward the old
rough-and-tumble, which was typified by the regime of Keate at Eton,
became impossible. After Dr. Arnold, no public school could venture to
ignore the virtues of respectability. Again, by his introduction of the
prefectorial system, Dr. Arnold produced far-reaching effects--effects
which he himself, perhaps, would have found perplexing. In his day, when
the school hours were over, the boys were free to enjoy themselves as
they liked; to bathe, to fish, to ramble for long afternoons in the
country, collecting eggs or gathering flowers. 'The taste of the boys at
this period,' writes an old Rugbaean who had been under Arnold, 'leaned
strongly towards flowers'. The words have an odd look today. 'The modern
reader of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" searches in vain for any reference to
compulsory games, house colours, or cricket averages. In those days,
when boys played games they played them for pleasure; but in those days
the prefectorial system--the system which hands over the life of a
school to an oligarchy of a dozen youths of seventeen--was still in its
infancy, and had not yet borne its fruit.
Teachers and prophets have strange after-histories; and that of Dr.
Arnold has been no exception. The earnest enthusiast who strove to make
his pupils Christian gentlemen and who governed his school according to
the principles of the Old Testament, has proved to be the founder of the
worship of athletics and the worship of good form. Upon those two poles
our public schools have turned for so long that we have almost come to
believe that such is their essential nature, and that an English public
schoolboy who wears the wrong clothes and takes no interest in football,
is a contradiction in terms. Yet it was not so before Dr. Arnold; will
it always be so after him? We shall see.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dean Stanley. Life and Correspondence of Dr Arnold.
Thomas Hughes. Tom Brown's Schooldays.
Sir H. Maxwell-Lyte. History of Eton College.
Wilfrid Ward. W. G. Ward and the Oxford Movement.
H. Clough. Letters. An Old Rugbaean. Recollections of Rugby.
Thomas Arnold. Passages in a Wandering Life.
The End of General Gordon
DURING the year 1883 a solitary English gentleman was to be seen,
wandering, with a thick book under his arm, in the neighbourhood of
Jerusalem. His unassuming figure, short and slight, with its
half-gliding, half-tripping motion, gave him a boyish aspect, which
contrasted, oddly, but not unpleasantly, with the touch of grey on his
hair and whiskers. There was the same contrast--enigmatic and
attractive--between the sunburnt brick-red complexion--the hue of the
seasoned traveller--and the large blue eyes, with their look of almost
childish sincerity. To the friendly inquirer, he would explain, in a
row, soft, and very distinct voice, that he was engaged in elucidating
four questions--the site of the Crucifixion, the line of division
between the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, the identification of Gideon,
and the position of the Garden of Eden. He was also, he would add, most
anxious to discover the spot where the Ark first touched ground, after
the subsidence of the Flood: he believed, indeed, that he had solved
that problem, as a reference to some passages in the book which he was
carrying would show.
This singular person was General Gordon, and his book was the Holy
Bible.
In such complete retirement from the world and the ways of men, it might
have seemed that a life of inordinate activity had found at last a
longed-for, final peacefulness. For month after month, for an entire
year, the General lingered by the banks of the Jordan. But then the
enchantment was suddenly broken. Once more adventure claimed him; he
plunged into the whirl of high affairs; his fate was mingled with the
frenzies of Empire and the doom of peoples. And it was not in peace and
rest, but in ruin and horror, that he reached his end.
The circumstances of that tragic history, so famous, so bitterly
debated, so often and so controversially described, remain full of
suggestion for the curious examiner of the past. There emerges from
those obscure, unhappy records an interest, not merely political and
historical, but human and dramatic. One catches a vision of strange
characters, moved by mysterious impulses, interacting in queer
complication, and hurrying at last--so it almost seems--like creatures
in a puppet show to a predestined catastrophe. The characters, too, have
a charm of their own: they are curiously English. What other nation on
the face of the earth could have produced Mr. Gladstone and Sir Evelyn
Baring and Lord Hartington and General Gordon? Alike in their emphasis
and their lack of emphasis, in their eccentricity and their
conventionality, in their matter-of-factness and their romance, these
four figures seem to embody the mingling contradictions of the English
spirit. As for the mise-en-scene, it is perfectly appropriate. But
first, let us glance at the earlier adventures of the hero of the piece.
Charles George Gordon was born in 1833. His father, of Highland and
military descent, was himself a Lieutenant-General; his mother came of a
family of merchants, distinguished for their sea voyages into remote
regions of the Globe. As a boy, Charlie was remarkable for his high
spirits, pluck, and love of mischief. Destined for the Artillery, he was
sent to the Academy at Woolwich, where some other characteristics made
their appearance. On one occasion, when the cadets had been forbidden to
leave the dining-room and the senior corporal stood with outstretched
arms in the doorway to prevent their exit, Charlie Gordon put his head
down, and, butting the officer in the pit of the stomach, projected him
down a flight of stairs and through a glass door at the bottom. For this
act of insubordination he was nearly dismissed--while the captain of his
company predicted that he would never make an officer. A little later,
when he was eighteen, it came to the knowledge of the authorities that
bullying was rife at the Academy. The new-comers were questioned, and
one of them said that Charlie Gordon had hit him over the head with a
clothes-brush. He had worked well, and his record was on the whole a
good one; but the authorities took a serious view of the case, and held
back his commission for six months. It was owing to this delay that he
went into the Royal Engineers, instead of the Royal Artillery.
He was sent to Pembroke, to work at the erection of fortifications; and
at Pembroke those religious convictions, which never afterwards left
him, first gained a hold upon his mind. Under the influence of his
sister Augusta and of a 'very religious captain of the name of Drew', he
began to reflect upon his sins, look up texts, and hope for salvation.
Though he had never been confirmed--he never was confirmed--he took the
sacrament every Sunday; and he eagerly perused the Priceless Diamond,
Scott's Commentaries, and The Remains of the Rev. R. McCheyne. 'No
novels or worldly books,' he wrote to his sister, 'come up to the
Commentaries of Scott. . . . I, remember well when you used to get them in
numbers, and I used to laugh at them; but, thank God, it is different
with me now. I feel much happier and more contented than I used to do. I
did not like Pembroke, but now I would not wish for any prettier place.
I have got a horse and gig, and Drew and myself drive all about the
country. I hope my dear father and mother think of eternal things . . .
Dearest Augusta, pray for me, I beg of you. '
He was twenty-one; the Crimean War broke out; and before the year was
over, he had managed to get himself transferred to Balaclava. During the
siege of Sebastopol he behaved with conspicuous gallantry. Upon the
declaration of peace, he was sent to Bessarabia to assist in determining
the frontier between Russia and Turkey, in accordance with the Treaty of
Paris; and upon this duty he was occupied for nearly two years. Not long
after his return home, in 1860, war was declared upon China. Captain
Gordon was dispatched to the scene of operations, but the fighting was
over before he arrived. Nevertheless, he was to remain for the next four
years in China, where he was to lay the foundations of extraordinary
renown.
Though he was too late to take part in the capture of the Taku Forts, he
was in time to witness the destruction of the Summer Palace at
Peking--the act by which Lord Elgin, in the name of European
civilisation, took vengeance upon the barbarism of the East.
The war was over; but the British Army remained in the country, until
the payment of an indemnity by the Chinese Government was completed. A
camp was formed at Tientsin, and Gordon was occupied in setting up huts
for the troops. While he was thus engaged, he had a slight attack of
smallpox. 'I am glad to say,' he told his sister, 'that this disease has
brought me back to my Saviour, and I trust in future to be a better
Christian than I have been hitherto. '
Curiously enough a similar circumstance had, more than twenty years
earlier, brought about a singular succession of events which were now
upon the point of opening the way to Gordon's first great adventure. In
1837, a village schoolmaster near Canton had been attacked by illness;
and, as in the case of Gordon, illness had been followed by a religious
revulsion. Hong-Siu-Tsuen--for such was his name--saw visions, went into
ecstasies, and entered into relations with the Deity. Shortly
afterwards, he fell in with a Methodist missionary from America, who
instructed him in the Christian religion. The new doctrine, working upon
the mystical ferment already in Hong's mind, produced a remarkable
result. He was, he declared, the prophet of God; he was more--he was the
Son of God; he was Tien Wang, the Celestial King; he was the younger
brother of Jesus. The times were propitious, and proselytes soon
gathered around him. Having conceived a grudge against the Government,
owing to his failure in an examination, Hong gave a political turn to
his teaching, which soon developed into a propaganda of rebellion
against the rule of the Manchus and the Mandarins. The authorities took
fright, attempted to suppress Hong by force, and failed. The movement
spread. By 1850 the rebels were overrunning the populous and flourishing
delta of the Yangtse Kiang, and had become a formidable force. In 1853
they captured Nankin, which was henceforth their capital. The Tien Wang,
established himself in a splendid palace, and proclaimed his new
evangel. His theogony included the wife of God, or the celestial Mother,
the wife of Jesus, or the celestial daughter-in-law, and a sister of
Jesus, whom he married to one of his lieutenants, who thus became the
celestial son-in-law; the Holy Ghost, however, was eliminated.
His mission was to root out Demons and Manchus from the face of the
earth, and to establish Taiping, the reign of eternal peace. In the
meantime, retiring into the depths of his palace, he left the further
conduct of earthly operations to his lieutenants, upon whom he bestowed
the title of 'Wangs' (kings), while he himself, surrounded by thirty
wives and one hundred concubines, devoted his energies to the spiritual
side of his mission. The Taiping Rebellion, as it came to be called, had
now reached its furthest extent. The rebels were even able to occupy,
for more than a year, the semi-European city of Shanghai. But then the
tide turned. The latent forces of the Empire gradually asserted
themselves. The rebels lost ground, their armies were defeated, and in
1859 Nankin itself was besieged, and the Celestial King trembled in his
palace. The end seemed to be at hand, when there was a sudden twist of
Fortune's wheel. The war of 1860, the invasion of China by European
armies, their march into the interior, and their occupation of Peking,
not only saved the rebels from destruction, but allowed them to recover
the greater part of what they had lost. Once more they seized upon the
provinces of the delta, once more they menaced Shanghai. It was clear
that the Imperial army was incompetent, and the Shanghai merchants
determined to provide for their own safety as best they could. They
accordingly got together a body of troops, partly Chinese and partly
European, and under European officers, to which they entrusted the
defence of the town. This small force, which, after a few preliminary
successes, received from the Chinese Government the title of the 'Ever
Victorious Army', was able to hold the rebels at bay, but it could do no
more. For two years Shanghai was in constant danger. The Taipings,
steadily growing in power, were spreading destruction far and wide. The
Ever Victorious Army was the only force capable of opposing them, and
the Ever Victorious Army was defeated more often than not. Its first
European leader had been killed; his successor quarrelled with the
Chinese Governor, Li Hung Chang, and was dismissed. At last it was
determined to ask the General at the head of the British Army of
Occupation for the loan of an officer to command the force.
The English,
who had been at first inclined to favour the Taipings, on religious
grounds, were now convinced, on practical grounds, of the necessity of
suppressing them. It was in these circumstances that, early in 1863, the
command of the Ever Victorious Army was offered to Gordon. He accepted
it, received the title of General from the Chinese authorities, and
entered forthwith upon his new task. He was just thirty.
In eighteen months, he told Li Hung Chang, the business would be
finished; and he was as good as his word. The difficulties before him
were very great. A vast tract of country was in the possession of the
rebels--an area, at the lowest estimate, of 14,000 square miles with a
population of 20,000,000. For centuries this low-lying plain of the
Yangtse delta, rich in silk and tea, fertilised by elaborate irrigation,
and covered with great walled cities, had been one of the most
flourishing districts in China. Though it was now being rapidly ruined
by the depredations of the Taipings, its strategic strength was
obviously enormous. Gordon, however, with the eye of a born general,
perceived that he could convert the very feature of the country which,
on the face of it, most favoured an army on the defence--its complicated
geographical system of interlacing roads and waterways, canals, lakes
and rivers--into a means of offensive warfare. The force at his disposal
was small, but it was mobile. He had a passion for map-making, and had
already, in his leisure hours, made a careful survey of the country
round Shanghai; he was thus able to execute a series of manoeuvres which
proved fatal to the enemy. By swift marches and counter-marches, by
sudden attacks and surprises, above all by the dispatch of armed
steamboats up the circuitous waterways into positions from which they
could fall upon the enemy in reverse, he was able gradually to force
back the rebels, to cut them off piecemeal in the field, and to seize
upon their cities. But, brilliant as these operations were, Gordon's
military genius showed itself no less unmistakably in other directions.
The Ever Victorious Army, recruited from the riff-raff of Shanghai, was
an ill-disciplined, ill-organised body of about three thousand men,
constantly on the verge of mutiny, supporting itself on plunder, and, at
the slightest provocation, melting into thin air. Gordon, by sheer force
of character, established over this incoherent mass of ruffians an
extraordinary ascendancy. He drilled them with rigid severity; he put
them into a uniform, armed them systematically, substituted pay for
loot, and was even able, at last, to introduce regulations of a sanitary
kind. There were some terrible scenes, in which the General, alone,
faced the whole furious army, and quelled it: scenes of rage, desperation,
towering courage, and summary execution. Eventually he attained an
almost magical prestige. Walking at the head of his troops with nothing
but a light cane in his hand, he seemed to pass through every danger
with the scatheless equanimity of a demi-god. The Taipings themselves
were awed into a strange reverence. More than once their leaders, in a
frenzy of fear and admiration, ordered the sharp-shooters not to take
aim at the advancing figure of the faintly smiling Englishman.
It is significant that Gordon found it easier to win battles and to
crush mutineers than to keep on good terms with the Chinese authorities.
He had to act in cooperation with a large native force; and it was only
natural that the general at the head of it should grow more and more
jealous and angry as the Englishman's successes revealed more and more
clearly his own incompetence. At first, indeed, Gordon could rely upon
the support of the Governor. Li Flung Chang's experience of Europeans
had been hitherto limited to low-class adventurers, and Gordon came as a
revelation.
'It is a direct blessing from Heaven,' he noted in his diary, 'the
coming of this British Gordon. . . . He is superior in manner and bearing
to any of the foreigners whom I have come into contact with, and does
not show outwardly that conceit which makes most of them repugnant in my
sight. '
A few months later, after he had accompanied Gordon on a victorious
expedition, the Mandarin's enthusiasm burst forth.
'What a sight for tired eyes,' he wrote, 'what an elixir for a heavy
heart--to see this splendid Englishman fight! . . . If there is anything
that I admire nearly as much as the superb scholarship of Tseng Kuofan,
it is the military qualities of this fine officer. He is a glorious
fellow! ' In his emotion, Li Hung Chang addressed Gordon as his brother,
declaring that he 'considered him worthy to fill the place of the
brother who is departed. Could I have said more in all the words of the
world? ' Then something happened which impressed and mystified the
sensitive Chinaman.
'The Englishman's face was first filled with a deep pleasure, and then
he seemed to be thinking of something depressing and sad; for the
smile went from his mouth and there were tears in his eyes when he
thanked me for what I had said. Can it be that he has, or has had, some
great trouble in his life, and that he fights recklessly to forget it,
or that Death has no terrors for him? '
But, as time went on, Li Hung Chang's attitude began to change. 'General
Gordon,' he notes in July, 'must control his tongue, even if he lets his
mind run loose. ' The Englishman had accused him of intriguing with the
Chinese general, and of withholding money due to the Ever Victorious
Army. 'Why does he not accord me the honours that are due to me, as head
of the military and civil authority in these parts? ' By September, the
Governor's earlier transports have been replaced by a more judicial
frame of mind.
'With his many faults, his pride, his temper, and his never-ending
demand for money, (for one is a noble man, and in spite of all I have
said to him or about him) I will ever think most highly of him. . . . He is
an honest man, but difficult to get on with. '
Disagreements of this kind might perhaps have been tided over until the
end of the campaign; but an unfortunate incident suddenly led to a more
serious quarrel. Gordon's advance had been fiercely contested, but it
had been constant; he had captured several important towns; and in
October he laid siege to the city of Soo-chow, once one of the most
famous and splendid in China. In December, its fall being obviously
imminent, the Taiping leaders agreed to surrender it on condition that
their lives were spared. Gordon was a party to the agreement, and laid
special stress upon his presence with the Imperial forces as a pledge of
its fulfilment. No sooner, however, was the city surrendered than the
rebel 'Wangs' were assassinated. In his fury, it is said that Gordon
searched everywhere for Li Hung Chang with a loaded pistol in his hand.
He was convinced of the complicity of the Governor, who, on his side,
denied that he was responsible for what had happened.
'I asked him why I should plot, and go around a mountain, when a mere
order, written with five strokes of the quill, would have accomplished
the same thing. He did not answer, but he insulted me, and said he would
report my treachery, as he called it, to Shanghai and England. Let him
do so; he cannot bring the crazy Wangs back. '
The agitated Mandarin hoped to placate Gordon by a large gratuity and an
Imperial medal; but the plan was not successful.
'General Gordon,' he writes, 'called upon me in his angriest mood. He
repeated his former speeches about the Wangs. I did not attempt to argue
with him . . . He refused the 10,000 taels, which I had ready for him,
and, with an oath, said that he did not want the Throne's medal. This is
showing the greatest disrespect. '
Gordon resigned his command; and it was only with the utmost reluctance
that he agreed at last to resume it. An arduous and terrible series of
operations followed; but they were successful, and by June, 1864, the
Ever Victorious Army, having accomplished its task, was disbanded. The
Imperial forces now closed round Nankin; the last hopes of the Tien Wang
had vanished. In the recesses of his seraglio, the Celestial King,
judging that the time had come for the conclusion of his mission,
swallowed gold leaf until he ascended to Heaven. In July, Nankin was
taken, the remaining chiefs were executed, and the rebellion was at an
end. The Chinese Government gave Gordon the highest rank in its military
hierarchy, and invested him with the yellow jacket and the peacock's
feather. He rejected an enormous offer of money; but he could not refuse
a great gold medal, specially struck in his honour by order of the
Emperor. At the end of the year he returned to England, where the
conqueror of the Taipings was made a Companion of the Bath.
That the English authorities should have seen fit to recognise Gordon's
services by the reward usually reserved for industrious clerks was
typical of their attitude towards him until the very end of his career.
Perhaps if he had been ready to make the most of the wave of popularity
which greeted him on his return--if he had advertised his fame and, amid
high circles, played the part of Chinese Gordon in a becoming
manner--the results would have been different. But he was by nature
farouche; his soul revolted against dinner parties and stiff shirts; and
the presence of ladies--especially of fashionable ladies--filled him
with uneasiness. He had, besides, a deeper dread of the world's
contaminations. And so, when he was appointed to Gravesend to supervise
the erection of a system of forts at the mouth of the Thames, he
remained there quietly for six years, and at last was almost forgotten.
The forts, which were extremely expensive and quite useless, occupied
his working hours; his leisure he devoted to acts of charity and to
religious contemplation. The neighbourhood was a poverty-stricken one,
and the kind Colonel, with his tripping step and simple manner, was soon
a familiar figure in it, chatting with the seamen, taking provisions to
starving families, or visiting some bedridden old woman to light her
fire. He was particularly fond of boys. Ragged street arabs and rough
sailor-lads crowded about him. They were made free of his house and
garden; they visited him in the evenings for lessons and advice; he
helped them, found them employment, corresponded with them when they
went out into the world. They were, he said, his Wangs. It was only by a
singular austerity of living that he was able to afford such a variety
of charitable expenses. The easy luxuries of his class and station were
unknown to him: his clothes verged upon the shabby; and his frugal meals
were eaten at a table with a drawer, into which the loaf and plate were
quickly swept at the approach of his poor visitors. Special occasions
demanded special sacrifices. When, during the Lancashire famine, a
public subscription was opened, finding that he had no ready money, he
remembered his Chinese medal, and, after effacing the inscription,
dispatched it as an anonymous gift.
Except for his boys and his paupers, he lived alone. In his solitude, he
ruminated upon the mysteries of the universe; and those religious
tendencies, which had already shown themselves, now became a fixed and
dominating factor in his life. His reading was confined almost entirely
to the Bible; but the Bible he read and re-read with an untiring,
unending assiduity. There, he was convinced, all truth was to be found;
and he was equally convinced that he could find it. The doubts of
philosophers, the investigations of commentators, the smiles of men of
the world, the dogmas of Churches--such things meant nothing to the
Colonel. Two facts alone were evident: there was the Bible, and there
was himself; and all that remained to be done was for him to discover
what were the Bible's instructions, and to act accordingly. In order to
make this discovery it was only necessary for him to read the Bible over
and over again; and therefore, for the rest of his life, he did so.
The faith that he evolved was mystical and fatalistic; it was also
highly unconventional. His creed, based upon the narrow foundations of
Jewish Scripture, eked out occasionally by some English evangelical
manual, was yet wide enough to ignore every doctrinal difference, and
even, at moments, to transcend the bounds of Christianity itself. The
just man was he who submitted to the Will of God, and the Will of God,
inscrutable and absolute, could be served aright only by those who
turned away from earthly desires and temporal temptations, to rest
themselves whole-heartedly upon the in-dwelling Spirit. Human beings
were the transitory embodiments of souls who had existed through an
infinite past, and would continue to exist through an infinite future.
The world was vanity; the flesh was dust and ashes.
'A man,' Gordon wrote to his sister, 'who knows not the secret, who has
not the in-dwelling of God revealed to him, is like this--[picture of a
circle with Body and Soul written within it]. He takes the promises and
curses as addressed to him as one man, and will not hear of there being
any birth before his natural birth, in any existence except with the
body he is in. The man to whom the secret (the indwelling of God) is
revealed is like this: [picture of a circle with soul and body enclosed
in two separate circles].
He applies the promises to one and the curses to the other, if
disobedient, which he must be, except the soul is enabled by God to
rule. He then sees he is not of this world; for when he speaks of
himself he quite disregards the body his soul lives in, which is
earthly. '
Such conceptions are familiar enough in the history of religious
thought: they are those of the hermit and the fakir; and it might have
been expected that, when once they had taken hold upon his mind, Gordon
would have been content to lay aside the activities of his profession,
and would have relapsed at last into the complete retirement of holy
meditation. But there were other elements in his nature which urged him
towards a very different course. He was no simple quietist. He was an
English gentleman, an officer, a man of energy and action, a lover of
danger and the audacities that defeat danger; a passionate creature,
flowing over with the self-assertiveness of independent judgment and the
arbitrary temper of command.
Whatever he might find in his pocket-Bible, it was not for such as he to
dream out his days in devout obscurity. But, conveniently enough, he
found nothing in his pocket-Bible indicating that he should. What he did
find was that the Will of God was inscrutable and absolute; that it was
man's duty to follow where God's hand led; and, if God's hand led
towards violent excitements and extraordinary vicissitudes, that it was
not only futile, it was impious to turn another way. Fatalism is always
apt to be a double-edged philosophy; for while, on the one hand, it
reveals the minutest occurrences as the immutable result of a rigid
chain of infinitely predestined causes, on the other, it invests the
wildest incoherences of conduct or of circumstance with the sanctity of
eternal law. And Gordon's fatalism was no exception. The same doctrine
that led him to dally with omens, to search for prophetic texts, and to
append, in brackets, the apotropaic initials D. V. after every statement
in his letters implying futurity, led him also to envisage his moods and
his desires, his passing reckless whims and his deep unconscious
instincts, as the mysterious manifestations of the indwelling God. That
there was danger lurking in such a creed he was very well aware. The
grosser temptations of the world--money and the vulgar attributes of
power--had, indeed, no charms for him; but there were subtler and more
insinuating allurements which it was not so easy to resist. More than
one observer declared that ambition was, in reality, the essential
motive in his life: ambition, neither for wealth nor titles, but for
fame and influence, for the swaying of multitudes, and for that kind of
enlarged and intensified existence 'where breath breathes most even in
the mouths of men'. Was it so? In the depths of Gordon's soul there were
intertwining contradictions--intricate recesses where egoism and
renunciation melted into one another, where the flesh lost itself in the
spirit, and the spirit in the flesh. What was the Will of God? The
question, which first became insistent during his retirement at
Gravesend, never afterwards left him; it might almost be said that he
spent the remainder of his life in searching for the answer to it. In
all his Odysseys, in all his strange and agitated adventures, a day
never passed on which he neglected the voice of eternal wisdom as it
spoke through the words of Paul or Solomon, of Jonah or Habakkuk. He
opened his Bible, he read, and then he noted down his reflections upon
scraps of paper, which, periodically pinned together, he dispatched to
one or other of his religious friends, and particularly his sister
Augusta. The published extracts from these voluminous outpourings lay
bare the inner history of Gordon's spirit, and reveal the pious
visionary of Gravesend in the restless hero of three continents.
His seclusion came to an end in a distinctly providential manner. In
accordance with a stipulation in the Treaty of Paris, an international
commission had been appointed to improve the navigation of the Danube;
and Gordon, who had acted on a similar body fifteen years earlier, was
sent out to represent Great Britain. At Constantinople, he chanced to
meet the Egyptian minister, Nubar Pasha. The Governorship of the
Equatorial Provinces of the Sudan was about to fall vacant; and Nubar
offered the post to Gordon, who accepted it.
'For some wise design,' he wrote to his sister, 'God turns events one
way or another, whether man likes it or not, as a man driving a horse
turns it to right or left without consideration as to whether the horse
likes that way or not. To be happy, a man must be like a well-broken,
willing horse, ready for anything. Events will go as God likes. '
And then followed six years of extraordinary, desperate, unceasing, and
ungrateful labour. The unexplored and pestilential region of Equatoria,
stretching southwards to the Great Lakes and the sources of the Nile,
had been annexed to Egypt by the Khedive Ismail, who, while he
squandered his millions on Parisian ballet-dancers, dreamt strange
dreams of glory and empire. Those dim tracts of swamp and forest in
Central Africa were--so he declared--to be 'opened up'; they were to
receive the blessings of civilisation, they were to become a source of
eternal honour to himself and Egypt. The slave-trade, which flourished
there, was to be put down; the savage inhabitants were to become
acquainted with freedom, justice, and prosperity. Incidentally, a
government monopoly in ivory was to be established, and the place was to
be made a paying concern. Ismail, hopelessly in debt to a horde of
European creditors, looked to Europe to support him in his schemes.
Europe, and, in particular, England, with her passion for extraneous
philanthropy, was not averse. Sir Samuel Baker became the first Governor
of Equatoria, and now Gordon was to carry on the good work. In such
circumstances it was only natural that Gordon should consider himself a
special instrument in God's band. To put his disinterestedness beyond
doubt, he reduced his salary, which had been fixed at L10,000, to
L2,000. He took over his new duties early in 1874, and it was not long
before he had a first hint of disillusionment. On his way up the Nile,
he was received in state at Khartoum by the Egyptian Governor-General of
the Sudan, his immediate official superior.
The function ended in a prolonged banquet, followed by a mixed ballet of
soldiers and completely naked young women, who danced in a circle, beat
time with their feet, and accompanied their gestures with a curious
sound of clucking. At last the Austrian Consul, overcome by the
exhilaration of the scene, flung himself in a frenzy among the dancers;
the Governor-General, shouting with delight, seemed about to follow
suit, when Gordon abruptly left the room, and the party broke up in
confusion.
When, 1,500 miles to the southward, Gordon reached the seat of his
government, and the desolation of the Tropics closed over him, the
agonising nature of his task stood fully revealed. For the next three
years he struggled with enormous difficulties--with the confused and
horrible country, the appalling climate, the maddening insects and the
loathsome diseases, the indifference of subordinates and superiors, the
savagery of the slave-traders, and the hatred of the inhabitants. One by
one the small company of his European staff succumbed. With a few
hundred Egyptian soldiers he had to suppress insurrections, make roads,
establish fortified posts, and enforce the government monopoly of ivory.
All this he accomplished; he even succeeded in sending enough money to
Cairo to pay for the expenses of the expedition. But a deep gloom had
fallen upon his spirit. When, after a series of incredible obstacles had
been overcome, a steamer was launched upon the unexplored Albert Nyanza,
he turned his back upon the lake, leaving the glory of its navigation to
his Italian lieutenant, Gessi. 'I wish,' he wrote, 'to give a practical
proof of what I think regarding the inordinate praise which is given to
an explorer. ' Among his distresses and self-mortifications, he loathed
the thought of all such honours, and remembered the attentions of
English society with a snarl.
'When, D. V. , I get home, I do not dine out. My reminiscences of these
lands will not be more pleasant to me than the China ones. What I shall
have done, will be what I have done. Men think giving dinners is
conferring a favour on you . . . Why not give dinners to those who need
them? '
No! His heart was set upon a very different object.
'To each is allotted a distinct work, to each a destined goal; to some
the seat at the right hand or left hand of the Saviour. (It was not His
to give; it was already given--Matthew xx, 23. Again, Judas went to "HIS
OWN PLACE"--Acts i, 25. ) It is difficult for the flesh to accept: "Ye
are dead, ye have naught to do with the world". How difficult for anyone
to be circumcised from the world, to be as indifferent to its pleasures,
its sorrows, and its comforts as a corpse is! That is to know the
resurrection. '
But the Holy Bible was not his only solace. For now, under the parching
African sun, we catch glimpses, for the first time, of Gordon's hand
stretching out towards stimulants of a more material quality. For months
together, we are told, he would drink nothing but pure water; and then
. . . water that was not so pure. In his fits of melancholy, he would shut
himself up in his tent for days at a time, with a hatchet and a flag
placed at the door to indicate that he was not to be disturbed for any
reason whatever; until at last the cloud would lift, the signals would
be removed, and the Governor would reappear, brisk and cheerful.
During, one of these retirements, there was grave danger of a native
attack upon the camp. Colonel Long, the Chief of Staff, ventured, after
some hesitation, to ignore the flag and hatchet, and to enter the
forbidden tent. He found Gordon seated at a table, upon which were an
open Bible and an open bottle of brandy. Long explained the
circumstances, but could obtain no answer beyond the abrupt words--'You
are commander of the camp'--and was obliged to retire, nonplussed, to
deal with the situation as best he could. On the following morning,
Gordon, cleanly shaven, and in the full-dress uniform of the Royal
Engineers, entered Long's hut with his usual tripping step, exclaiming
'Old fellow, now don't be angry with me. I was very low last night.
Let's have a good breakfast--a little b. and s. Do you feel up to it? '
And, with these veering moods and dangerous restoratives, there came an
intensification of the queer and violent elements in the temper of the
man.
His eccentricities grew upon him. He found it more and more
uncomfortable to follow the ordinary course. Official routine was an
agony to him. His caustic and satirical humour expressed itself in a
style that astounded government departments.
generations of favourite pupils began to spread his fame through the
Universities. At Oxford especially, men were profoundly impressed by the
pious aims of the boys from Rugby. It was a new thing to see
undergraduates going to Chapel more often than they were obliged, and
visiting the good poor. Their reverent admiration for Dr. Arnold was no
less remarkable. Whenever two of his old pupils met, they joined in his
praises; and the sight of his picture had been known to call forth, from
one who had not even reached the Sixth, exclamations of rapture lasting
for ten minutes and filling with astonishment the young men from other
schools who happened to be present.
He became a celebrity; he became at last a great man. Rugby prospered;
its numbers rose higher than ever before; and, after thirteen years as
headmaster, Dr. Arnold began to feel that his work there was
accomplished, and that he might look forward either to other labours or,
perhaps, to a dignified retirement. But it was not to be.
His father had died suddenly at the age of fifty-three from angina
pectoris; and he himself was haunted by forebodings of an early death.
To be snatched away without a warning, to come in a moment from the
seductions of this World to the presence of Eternity--his most ordinary
actions, the most casual remarks, served to keep him in remembrance of
that dreadful possibility. When one of his little boys clapped his hands
at the thought of the approaching holidays, the Doctor gently checked
him, and repeated the story of his own early childhood; how his own
father had made him read aloud a sermon on the text 'Boast not thyself
of tomorrow"; and how, within the week, his father was dead. On the
title page of his MS. volume of sermons, he was always careful to write
the date of its commencement, leaving a blank for that of its
completion. One of his children asked him the meaning of this. 'It is
one of the most solemn things I do,' he replied, 'to write the beginning
of that sentence, and think that I may perhaps not live to finish it. '
It was noticed that in the spring of 1842 such thoughts seemed to be
even more frequently in his mind than usual. He was only in his
forty-seventh year, but he dwelt darkly on the fragility of human
existence. Towards the end of May, he began to keep a diary--a private
memorandum of his intimate communings with the Almighty. Here, evening
after evening, in the traditional language of religious devotion, he
humbled himself before God, prayed for strength and purity, and threw
himself upon the mercy of the Most High.
'Another day and another month succeed', he wrote on May 31st. 'May God
keep my mind and heart fixed on Him, and cleanse me from all sin. I
would wish to keep a watch over my tongue, as to vehement speaking and
censuring of others . . . I would desire to remember my latter end to which
I am approaching . . . May God keep me in the hour of death, through Jesus
Christ; and preserve me from every fear, as well as from presumption. '
On June 2nd he wrote, 'Again the day is over and I am going to rest. Oh
Lord, preserve me this night, and strengthen me to bear whatever Thou
shalt see fit to lay on me, whether pain, sickness, danger, or
distress. ' On Sunday, June 5th, the reading of the newspaper aroused
'painful and solemn' reflections . . . 'So much of sin and so much of
suffering in the world, as are there displayed, and no one seems able to
remedy either. And then the thought of my own private life, so full of
comforts, is very startling. ' He was puzzled; but he concluded with a
prayer: 'May I be kept humble and zealous, and may God give me grace to
labour in my generation for the good of my brethren and for His Glory! '
The end of the term was approaching, and to all appearance the Doctor
was in excellent spirits. On June 11th, after a hard day's work, he
spent the evening with a friend in the discussion of various topics upon
which he often touched in his conversation the comparison of the art of
medicine in barbarous and civilised ages, the philological importance of
provincial vocabularies, and the threatening prospect of the moral
condition of the United States. Left alone, he turned to his diary.
'The day after tomorrow,' he wrote, 'is my birthday, if I am permitted
to live to see it--my forty-seventh birthday since my birth. How large a
portion of my life on earth is already passed! And then--what is to
follow this life? How visibly my outward work seems contracting and
softening away into the gentler employments of old age. In one sense how
nearly can I now say, "Vivi". And I thank God that, as far as ambition
is concerned, it is, I trust, fully mortified; I have no desire other
than to step back from my present place in the world, and not to rise to
a higher. Still there are works which, with God's permission, I would do
before the night cometh. '
Dr. Arnold was thinking of his great work on Church and State.
Early next morning he awoke with a sharp pain in his chest. The pain
increasing, a physician was sent for; and in the meantime Mrs. Arnold
read aloud to her husband the Fifty-first Psalm. Upon one of their boys
coming into the room,
'My son, thank God for me,' said Dr. Arnold; and as the boy did not at
once catch his meaning, he added, 'Thank God, Tom, for giving me this
pain; I have suffered so little pain in my life that I feel it is very
good for me. Now God has given it to me, and I do so thank Him for it. '
Then Mrs. Arnold read from the Prayer-book the 'Visitation of the Sick',
her husband listening with deep attention, and assenting with an
emphatic 'Yes' at the end of many of the sentences. When the physician
arrived, he perceived at once the gravity of the case: it was an attack
of angina pectoris. He began to prepare some laudanum, while Mrs. Arnold
went out to fetch the children. All at once, as the medical man was
bending over his glasses, there was a rattle from the bed; a convulsive
struggle followed; and, when the unhappy woman, with the children, and
all the servants, rushed into the room, Dr. Arnold had passed from his
perplexities forever.
There can be little doubt that what he had achieved justified the
prediction of the Provost of Oriel that he would 'change the face of
education all through the public schools of England'. It is true that,
so far as the actual machinery of education was concerned, Dr. Arnold
not only failed to effect a change, but deliberately adhered to the old
system. The monastic and literary conceptions of education, which had
their roots in the Middle Ages, and had been accepted and strengthened
at the revival of Learning, he adopted almost without hesitation. Under
him, the public school remained, in essentials, a conventional
establishment, devoted to the teaching of Greek and Latin grammar. Had
he set on foot reforms in these directions, it seems probable that he
might have succeeded in carrying the parents of England with him. The
moment was ripe; there was a general desire for educational changes; and
Dr. Arnold's great reputation could hardly have been resisted. As it
was, he threw the whole weight of his influence into the opposite scale,
and the ancient system became more firmly established than ever.
The changes which he did effect were of a very different nature. By
introducing morals and religion into his scheme of education, he altered
the whole atmosphere of public-school life. Henceforward the old
rough-and-tumble, which was typified by the regime of Keate at Eton,
became impossible. After Dr. Arnold, no public school could venture to
ignore the virtues of respectability. Again, by his introduction of the
prefectorial system, Dr. Arnold produced far-reaching effects--effects
which he himself, perhaps, would have found perplexing. In his day, when
the school hours were over, the boys were free to enjoy themselves as
they liked; to bathe, to fish, to ramble for long afternoons in the
country, collecting eggs or gathering flowers. 'The taste of the boys at
this period,' writes an old Rugbaean who had been under Arnold, 'leaned
strongly towards flowers'. The words have an odd look today. 'The modern
reader of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" searches in vain for any reference to
compulsory games, house colours, or cricket averages. In those days,
when boys played games they played them for pleasure; but in those days
the prefectorial system--the system which hands over the life of a
school to an oligarchy of a dozen youths of seventeen--was still in its
infancy, and had not yet borne its fruit.
Teachers and prophets have strange after-histories; and that of Dr.
Arnold has been no exception. The earnest enthusiast who strove to make
his pupils Christian gentlemen and who governed his school according to
the principles of the Old Testament, has proved to be the founder of the
worship of athletics and the worship of good form. Upon those two poles
our public schools have turned for so long that we have almost come to
believe that such is their essential nature, and that an English public
schoolboy who wears the wrong clothes and takes no interest in football,
is a contradiction in terms. Yet it was not so before Dr. Arnold; will
it always be so after him? We shall see.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dean Stanley. Life and Correspondence of Dr Arnold.
Thomas Hughes. Tom Brown's Schooldays.
Sir H. Maxwell-Lyte. History of Eton College.
Wilfrid Ward. W. G. Ward and the Oxford Movement.
H. Clough. Letters. An Old Rugbaean. Recollections of Rugby.
Thomas Arnold. Passages in a Wandering Life.
The End of General Gordon
DURING the year 1883 a solitary English gentleman was to be seen,
wandering, with a thick book under his arm, in the neighbourhood of
Jerusalem. His unassuming figure, short and slight, with its
half-gliding, half-tripping motion, gave him a boyish aspect, which
contrasted, oddly, but not unpleasantly, with the touch of grey on his
hair and whiskers. There was the same contrast--enigmatic and
attractive--between the sunburnt brick-red complexion--the hue of the
seasoned traveller--and the large blue eyes, with their look of almost
childish sincerity. To the friendly inquirer, he would explain, in a
row, soft, and very distinct voice, that he was engaged in elucidating
four questions--the site of the Crucifixion, the line of division
between the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, the identification of Gideon,
and the position of the Garden of Eden. He was also, he would add, most
anxious to discover the spot where the Ark first touched ground, after
the subsidence of the Flood: he believed, indeed, that he had solved
that problem, as a reference to some passages in the book which he was
carrying would show.
This singular person was General Gordon, and his book was the Holy
Bible.
In such complete retirement from the world and the ways of men, it might
have seemed that a life of inordinate activity had found at last a
longed-for, final peacefulness. For month after month, for an entire
year, the General lingered by the banks of the Jordan. But then the
enchantment was suddenly broken. Once more adventure claimed him; he
plunged into the whirl of high affairs; his fate was mingled with the
frenzies of Empire and the doom of peoples. And it was not in peace and
rest, but in ruin and horror, that he reached his end.
The circumstances of that tragic history, so famous, so bitterly
debated, so often and so controversially described, remain full of
suggestion for the curious examiner of the past. There emerges from
those obscure, unhappy records an interest, not merely political and
historical, but human and dramatic. One catches a vision of strange
characters, moved by mysterious impulses, interacting in queer
complication, and hurrying at last--so it almost seems--like creatures
in a puppet show to a predestined catastrophe. The characters, too, have
a charm of their own: they are curiously English. What other nation on
the face of the earth could have produced Mr. Gladstone and Sir Evelyn
Baring and Lord Hartington and General Gordon? Alike in their emphasis
and their lack of emphasis, in their eccentricity and their
conventionality, in their matter-of-factness and their romance, these
four figures seem to embody the mingling contradictions of the English
spirit. As for the mise-en-scene, it is perfectly appropriate. But
first, let us glance at the earlier adventures of the hero of the piece.
Charles George Gordon was born in 1833. His father, of Highland and
military descent, was himself a Lieutenant-General; his mother came of a
family of merchants, distinguished for their sea voyages into remote
regions of the Globe. As a boy, Charlie was remarkable for his high
spirits, pluck, and love of mischief. Destined for the Artillery, he was
sent to the Academy at Woolwich, where some other characteristics made
their appearance. On one occasion, when the cadets had been forbidden to
leave the dining-room and the senior corporal stood with outstretched
arms in the doorway to prevent their exit, Charlie Gordon put his head
down, and, butting the officer in the pit of the stomach, projected him
down a flight of stairs and through a glass door at the bottom. For this
act of insubordination he was nearly dismissed--while the captain of his
company predicted that he would never make an officer. A little later,
when he was eighteen, it came to the knowledge of the authorities that
bullying was rife at the Academy. The new-comers were questioned, and
one of them said that Charlie Gordon had hit him over the head with a
clothes-brush. He had worked well, and his record was on the whole a
good one; but the authorities took a serious view of the case, and held
back his commission for six months. It was owing to this delay that he
went into the Royal Engineers, instead of the Royal Artillery.
He was sent to Pembroke, to work at the erection of fortifications; and
at Pembroke those religious convictions, which never afterwards left
him, first gained a hold upon his mind. Under the influence of his
sister Augusta and of a 'very religious captain of the name of Drew', he
began to reflect upon his sins, look up texts, and hope for salvation.
Though he had never been confirmed--he never was confirmed--he took the
sacrament every Sunday; and he eagerly perused the Priceless Diamond,
Scott's Commentaries, and The Remains of the Rev. R. McCheyne. 'No
novels or worldly books,' he wrote to his sister, 'come up to the
Commentaries of Scott. . . . I, remember well when you used to get them in
numbers, and I used to laugh at them; but, thank God, it is different
with me now. I feel much happier and more contented than I used to do. I
did not like Pembroke, but now I would not wish for any prettier place.
I have got a horse and gig, and Drew and myself drive all about the
country. I hope my dear father and mother think of eternal things . . .
Dearest Augusta, pray for me, I beg of you. '
He was twenty-one; the Crimean War broke out; and before the year was
over, he had managed to get himself transferred to Balaclava. During the
siege of Sebastopol he behaved with conspicuous gallantry. Upon the
declaration of peace, he was sent to Bessarabia to assist in determining
the frontier between Russia and Turkey, in accordance with the Treaty of
Paris; and upon this duty he was occupied for nearly two years. Not long
after his return home, in 1860, war was declared upon China. Captain
Gordon was dispatched to the scene of operations, but the fighting was
over before he arrived. Nevertheless, he was to remain for the next four
years in China, where he was to lay the foundations of extraordinary
renown.
Though he was too late to take part in the capture of the Taku Forts, he
was in time to witness the destruction of the Summer Palace at
Peking--the act by which Lord Elgin, in the name of European
civilisation, took vengeance upon the barbarism of the East.
The war was over; but the British Army remained in the country, until
the payment of an indemnity by the Chinese Government was completed. A
camp was formed at Tientsin, and Gordon was occupied in setting up huts
for the troops. While he was thus engaged, he had a slight attack of
smallpox. 'I am glad to say,' he told his sister, 'that this disease has
brought me back to my Saviour, and I trust in future to be a better
Christian than I have been hitherto. '
Curiously enough a similar circumstance had, more than twenty years
earlier, brought about a singular succession of events which were now
upon the point of opening the way to Gordon's first great adventure. In
1837, a village schoolmaster near Canton had been attacked by illness;
and, as in the case of Gordon, illness had been followed by a religious
revulsion. Hong-Siu-Tsuen--for such was his name--saw visions, went into
ecstasies, and entered into relations with the Deity. Shortly
afterwards, he fell in with a Methodist missionary from America, who
instructed him in the Christian religion. The new doctrine, working upon
the mystical ferment already in Hong's mind, produced a remarkable
result. He was, he declared, the prophet of God; he was more--he was the
Son of God; he was Tien Wang, the Celestial King; he was the younger
brother of Jesus. The times were propitious, and proselytes soon
gathered around him. Having conceived a grudge against the Government,
owing to his failure in an examination, Hong gave a political turn to
his teaching, which soon developed into a propaganda of rebellion
against the rule of the Manchus and the Mandarins. The authorities took
fright, attempted to suppress Hong by force, and failed. The movement
spread. By 1850 the rebels were overrunning the populous and flourishing
delta of the Yangtse Kiang, and had become a formidable force. In 1853
they captured Nankin, which was henceforth their capital. The Tien Wang,
established himself in a splendid palace, and proclaimed his new
evangel. His theogony included the wife of God, or the celestial Mother,
the wife of Jesus, or the celestial daughter-in-law, and a sister of
Jesus, whom he married to one of his lieutenants, who thus became the
celestial son-in-law; the Holy Ghost, however, was eliminated.
His mission was to root out Demons and Manchus from the face of the
earth, and to establish Taiping, the reign of eternal peace. In the
meantime, retiring into the depths of his palace, he left the further
conduct of earthly operations to his lieutenants, upon whom he bestowed
the title of 'Wangs' (kings), while he himself, surrounded by thirty
wives and one hundred concubines, devoted his energies to the spiritual
side of his mission. The Taiping Rebellion, as it came to be called, had
now reached its furthest extent. The rebels were even able to occupy,
for more than a year, the semi-European city of Shanghai. But then the
tide turned. The latent forces of the Empire gradually asserted
themselves. The rebels lost ground, their armies were defeated, and in
1859 Nankin itself was besieged, and the Celestial King trembled in his
palace. The end seemed to be at hand, when there was a sudden twist of
Fortune's wheel. The war of 1860, the invasion of China by European
armies, their march into the interior, and their occupation of Peking,
not only saved the rebels from destruction, but allowed them to recover
the greater part of what they had lost. Once more they seized upon the
provinces of the delta, once more they menaced Shanghai. It was clear
that the Imperial army was incompetent, and the Shanghai merchants
determined to provide for their own safety as best they could. They
accordingly got together a body of troops, partly Chinese and partly
European, and under European officers, to which they entrusted the
defence of the town. This small force, which, after a few preliminary
successes, received from the Chinese Government the title of the 'Ever
Victorious Army', was able to hold the rebels at bay, but it could do no
more. For two years Shanghai was in constant danger. The Taipings,
steadily growing in power, were spreading destruction far and wide. The
Ever Victorious Army was the only force capable of opposing them, and
the Ever Victorious Army was defeated more often than not. Its first
European leader had been killed; his successor quarrelled with the
Chinese Governor, Li Hung Chang, and was dismissed. At last it was
determined to ask the General at the head of the British Army of
Occupation for the loan of an officer to command the force.
The English,
who had been at first inclined to favour the Taipings, on religious
grounds, were now convinced, on practical grounds, of the necessity of
suppressing them. It was in these circumstances that, early in 1863, the
command of the Ever Victorious Army was offered to Gordon. He accepted
it, received the title of General from the Chinese authorities, and
entered forthwith upon his new task. He was just thirty.
In eighteen months, he told Li Hung Chang, the business would be
finished; and he was as good as his word. The difficulties before him
were very great. A vast tract of country was in the possession of the
rebels--an area, at the lowest estimate, of 14,000 square miles with a
population of 20,000,000. For centuries this low-lying plain of the
Yangtse delta, rich in silk and tea, fertilised by elaborate irrigation,
and covered with great walled cities, had been one of the most
flourishing districts in China. Though it was now being rapidly ruined
by the depredations of the Taipings, its strategic strength was
obviously enormous. Gordon, however, with the eye of a born general,
perceived that he could convert the very feature of the country which,
on the face of it, most favoured an army on the defence--its complicated
geographical system of interlacing roads and waterways, canals, lakes
and rivers--into a means of offensive warfare. The force at his disposal
was small, but it was mobile. He had a passion for map-making, and had
already, in his leisure hours, made a careful survey of the country
round Shanghai; he was thus able to execute a series of manoeuvres which
proved fatal to the enemy. By swift marches and counter-marches, by
sudden attacks and surprises, above all by the dispatch of armed
steamboats up the circuitous waterways into positions from which they
could fall upon the enemy in reverse, he was able gradually to force
back the rebels, to cut them off piecemeal in the field, and to seize
upon their cities. But, brilliant as these operations were, Gordon's
military genius showed itself no less unmistakably in other directions.
The Ever Victorious Army, recruited from the riff-raff of Shanghai, was
an ill-disciplined, ill-organised body of about three thousand men,
constantly on the verge of mutiny, supporting itself on plunder, and, at
the slightest provocation, melting into thin air. Gordon, by sheer force
of character, established over this incoherent mass of ruffians an
extraordinary ascendancy. He drilled them with rigid severity; he put
them into a uniform, armed them systematically, substituted pay for
loot, and was even able, at last, to introduce regulations of a sanitary
kind. There were some terrible scenes, in which the General, alone,
faced the whole furious army, and quelled it: scenes of rage, desperation,
towering courage, and summary execution. Eventually he attained an
almost magical prestige. Walking at the head of his troops with nothing
but a light cane in his hand, he seemed to pass through every danger
with the scatheless equanimity of a demi-god. The Taipings themselves
were awed into a strange reverence. More than once their leaders, in a
frenzy of fear and admiration, ordered the sharp-shooters not to take
aim at the advancing figure of the faintly smiling Englishman.
It is significant that Gordon found it easier to win battles and to
crush mutineers than to keep on good terms with the Chinese authorities.
He had to act in cooperation with a large native force; and it was only
natural that the general at the head of it should grow more and more
jealous and angry as the Englishman's successes revealed more and more
clearly his own incompetence. At first, indeed, Gordon could rely upon
the support of the Governor. Li Flung Chang's experience of Europeans
had been hitherto limited to low-class adventurers, and Gordon came as a
revelation.
'It is a direct blessing from Heaven,' he noted in his diary, 'the
coming of this British Gordon. . . . He is superior in manner and bearing
to any of the foreigners whom I have come into contact with, and does
not show outwardly that conceit which makes most of them repugnant in my
sight. '
A few months later, after he had accompanied Gordon on a victorious
expedition, the Mandarin's enthusiasm burst forth.
'What a sight for tired eyes,' he wrote, 'what an elixir for a heavy
heart--to see this splendid Englishman fight! . . . If there is anything
that I admire nearly as much as the superb scholarship of Tseng Kuofan,
it is the military qualities of this fine officer. He is a glorious
fellow! ' In his emotion, Li Hung Chang addressed Gordon as his brother,
declaring that he 'considered him worthy to fill the place of the
brother who is departed. Could I have said more in all the words of the
world? ' Then something happened which impressed and mystified the
sensitive Chinaman.
'The Englishman's face was first filled with a deep pleasure, and then
he seemed to be thinking of something depressing and sad; for the
smile went from his mouth and there were tears in his eyes when he
thanked me for what I had said. Can it be that he has, or has had, some
great trouble in his life, and that he fights recklessly to forget it,
or that Death has no terrors for him? '
But, as time went on, Li Hung Chang's attitude began to change. 'General
Gordon,' he notes in July, 'must control his tongue, even if he lets his
mind run loose. ' The Englishman had accused him of intriguing with the
Chinese general, and of withholding money due to the Ever Victorious
Army. 'Why does he not accord me the honours that are due to me, as head
of the military and civil authority in these parts? ' By September, the
Governor's earlier transports have been replaced by a more judicial
frame of mind.
'With his many faults, his pride, his temper, and his never-ending
demand for money, (for one is a noble man, and in spite of all I have
said to him or about him) I will ever think most highly of him. . . . He is
an honest man, but difficult to get on with. '
Disagreements of this kind might perhaps have been tided over until the
end of the campaign; but an unfortunate incident suddenly led to a more
serious quarrel. Gordon's advance had been fiercely contested, but it
had been constant; he had captured several important towns; and in
October he laid siege to the city of Soo-chow, once one of the most
famous and splendid in China. In December, its fall being obviously
imminent, the Taiping leaders agreed to surrender it on condition that
their lives were spared. Gordon was a party to the agreement, and laid
special stress upon his presence with the Imperial forces as a pledge of
its fulfilment. No sooner, however, was the city surrendered than the
rebel 'Wangs' were assassinated. In his fury, it is said that Gordon
searched everywhere for Li Hung Chang with a loaded pistol in his hand.
He was convinced of the complicity of the Governor, who, on his side,
denied that he was responsible for what had happened.
'I asked him why I should plot, and go around a mountain, when a mere
order, written with five strokes of the quill, would have accomplished
the same thing. He did not answer, but he insulted me, and said he would
report my treachery, as he called it, to Shanghai and England. Let him
do so; he cannot bring the crazy Wangs back. '
The agitated Mandarin hoped to placate Gordon by a large gratuity and an
Imperial medal; but the plan was not successful.
'General Gordon,' he writes, 'called upon me in his angriest mood. He
repeated his former speeches about the Wangs. I did not attempt to argue
with him . . . He refused the 10,000 taels, which I had ready for him,
and, with an oath, said that he did not want the Throne's medal. This is
showing the greatest disrespect. '
Gordon resigned his command; and it was only with the utmost reluctance
that he agreed at last to resume it. An arduous and terrible series of
operations followed; but they were successful, and by June, 1864, the
Ever Victorious Army, having accomplished its task, was disbanded. The
Imperial forces now closed round Nankin; the last hopes of the Tien Wang
had vanished. In the recesses of his seraglio, the Celestial King,
judging that the time had come for the conclusion of his mission,
swallowed gold leaf until he ascended to Heaven. In July, Nankin was
taken, the remaining chiefs were executed, and the rebellion was at an
end. The Chinese Government gave Gordon the highest rank in its military
hierarchy, and invested him with the yellow jacket and the peacock's
feather. He rejected an enormous offer of money; but he could not refuse
a great gold medal, specially struck in his honour by order of the
Emperor. At the end of the year he returned to England, where the
conqueror of the Taipings was made a Companion of the Bath.
That the English authorities should have seen fit to recognise Gordon's
services by the reward usually reserved for industrious clerks was
typical of their attitude towards him until the very end of his career.
Perhaps if he had been ready to make the most of the wave of popularity
which greeted him on his return--if he had advertised his fame and, amid
high circles, played the part of Chinese Gordon in a becoming
manner--the results would have been different. But he was by nature
farouche; his soul revolted against dinner parties and stiff shirts; and
the presence of ladies--especially of fashionable ladies--filled him
with uneasiness. He had, besides, a deeper dread of the world's
contaminations. And so, when he was appointed to Gravesend to supervise
the erection of a system of forts at the mouth of the Thames, he
remained there quietly for six years, and at last was almost forgotten.
The forts, which were extremely expensive and quite useless, occupied
his working hours; his leisure he devoted to acts of charity and to
religious contemplation. The neighbourhood was a poverty-stricken one,
and the kind Colonel, with his tripping step and simple manner, was soon
a familiar figure in it, chatting with the seamen, taking provisions to
starving families, or visiting some bedridden old woman to light her
fire. He was particularly fond of boys. Ragged street arabs and rough
sailor-lads crowded about him. They were made free of his house and
garden; they visited him in the evenings for lessons and advice; he
helped them, found them employment, corresponded with them when they
went out into the world. They were, he said, his Wangs. It was only by a
singular austerity of living that he was able to afford such a variety
of charitable expenses. The easy luxuries of his class and station were
unknown to him: his clothes verged upon the shabby; and his frugal meals
were eaten at a table with a drawer, into which the loaf and plate were
quickly swept at the approach of his poor visitors. Special occasions
demanded special sacrifices. When, during the Lancashire famine, a
public subscription was opened, finding that he had no ready money, he
remembered his Chinese medal, and, after effacing the inscription,
dispatched it as an anonymous gift.
Except for his boys and his paupers, he lived alone. In his solitude, he
ruminated upon the mysteries of the universe; and those religious
tendencies, which had already shown themselves, now became a fixed and
dominating factor in his life. His reading was confined almost entirely
to the Bible; but the Bible he read and re-read with an untiring,
unending assiduity. There, he was convinced, all truth was to be found;
and he was equally convinced that he could find it. The doubts of
philosophers, the investigations of commentators, the smiles of men of
the world, the dogmas of Churches--such things meant nothing to the
Colonel. Two facts alone were evident: there was the Bible, and there
was himself; and all that remained to be done was for him to discover
what were the Bible's instructions, and to act accordingly. In order to
make this discovery it was only necessary for him to read the Bible over
and over again; and therefore, for the rest of his life, he did so.
The faith that he evolved was mystical and fatalistic; it was also
highly unconventional. His creed, based upon the narrow foundations of
Jewish Scripture, eked out occasionally by some English evangelical
manual, was yet wide enough to ignore every doctrinal difference, and
even, at moments, to transcend the bounds of Christianity itself. The
just man was he who submitted to the Will of God, and the Will of God,
inscrutable and absolute, could be served aright only by those who
turned away from earthly desires and temporal temptations, to rest
themselves whole-heartedly upon the in-dwelling Spirit. Human beings
were the transitory embodiments of souls who had existed through an
infinite past, and would continue to exist through an infinite future.
The world was vanity; the flesh was dust and ashes.
'A man,' Gordon wrote to his sister, 'who knows not the secret, who has
not the in-dwelling of God revealed to him, is like this--[picture of a
circle with Body and Soul written within it]. He takes the promises and
curses as addressed to him as one man, and will not hear of there being
any birth before his natural birth, in any existence except with the
body he is in. The man to whom the secret (the indwelling of God) is
revealed is like this: [picture of a circle with soul and body enclosed
in two separate circles].
He applies the promises to one and the curses to the other, if
disobedient, which he must be, except the soul is enabled by God to
rule. He then sees he is not of this world; for when he speaks of
himself he quite disregards the body his soul lives in, which is
earthly. '
Such conceptions are familiar enough in the history of religious
thought: they are those of the hermit and the fakir; and it might have
been expected that, when once they had taken hold upon his mind, Gordon
would have been content to lay aside the activities of his profession,
and would have relapsed at last into the complete retirement of holy
meditation. But there were other elements in his nature which urged him
towards a very different course. He was no simple quietist. He was an
English gentleman, an officer, a man of energy and action, a lover of
danger and the audacities that defeat danger; a passionate creature,
flowing over with the self-assertiveness of independent judgment and the
arbitrary temper of command.
Whatever he might find in his pocket-Bible, it was not for such as he to
dream out his days in devout obscurity. But, conveniently enough, he
found nothing in his pocket-Bible indicating that he should. What he did
find was that the Will of God was inscrutable and absolute; that it was
man's duty to follow where God's hand led; and, if God's hand led
towards violent excitements and extraordinary vicissitudes, that it was
not only futile, it was impious to turn another way. Fatalism is always
apt to be a double-edged philosophy; for while, on the one hand, it
reveals the minutest occurrences as the immutable result of a rigid
chain of infinitely predestined causes, on the other, it invests the
wildest incoherences of conduct or of circumstance with the sanctity of
eternal law. And Gordon's fatalism was no exception. The same doctrine
that led him to dally with omens, to search for prophetic texts, and to
append, in brackets, the apotropaic initials D. V. after every statement
in his letters implying futurity, led him also to envisage his moods and
his desires, his passing reckless whims and his deep unconscious
instincts, as the mysterious manifestations of the indwelling God. That
there was danger lurking in such a creed he was very well aware. The
grosser temptations of the world--money and the vulgar attributes of
power--had, indeed, no charms for him; but there were subtler and more
insinuating allurements which it was not so easy to resist. More than
one observer declared that ambition was, in reality, the essential
motive in his life: ambition, neither for wealth nor titles, but for
fame and influence, for the swaying of multitudes, and for that kind of
enlarged and intensified existence 'where breath breathes most even in
the mouths of men'. Was it so? In the depths of Gordon's soul there were
intertwining contradictions--intricate recesses where egoism and
renunciation melted into one another, where the flesh lost itself in the
spirit, and the spirit in the flesh. What was the Will of God? The
question, which first became insistent during his retirement at
Gravesend, never afterwards left him; it might almost be said that he
spent the remainder of his life in searching for the answer to it. In
all his Odysseys, in all his strange and agitated adventures, a day
never passed on which he neglected the voice of eternal wisdom as it
spoke through the words of Paul or Solomon, of Jonah or Habakkuk. He
opened his Bible, he read, and then he noted down his reflections upon
scraps of paper, which, periodically pinned together, he dispatched to
one or other of his religious friends, and particularly his sister
Augusta. The published extracts from these voluminous outpourings lay
bare the inner history of Gordon's spirit, and reveal the pious
visionary of Gravesend in the restless hero of three continents.
His seclusion came to an end in a distinctly providential manner. In
accordance with a stipulation in the Treaty of Paris, an international
commission had been appointed to improve the navigation of the Danube;
and Gordon, who had acted on a similar body fifteen years earlier, was
sent out to represent Great Britain. At Constantinople, he chanced to
meet the Egyptian minister, Nubar Pasha. The Governorship of the
Equatorial Provinces of the Sudan was about to fall vacant; and Nubar
offered the post to Gordon, who accepted it.
'For some wise design,' he wrote to his sister, 'God turns events one
way or another, whether man likes it or not, as a man driving a horse
turns it to right or left without consideration as to whether the horse
likes that way or not. To be happy, a man must be like a well-broken,
willing horse, ready for anything. Events will go as God likes. '
And then followed six years of extraordinary, desperate, unceasing, and
ungrateful labour. The unexplored and pestilential region of Equatoria,
stretching southwards to the Great Lakes and the sources of the Nile,
had been annexed to Egypt by the Khedive Ismail, who, while he
squandered his millions on Parisian ballet-dancers, dreamt strange
dreams of glory and empire. Those dim tracts of swamp and forest in
Central Africa were--so he declared--to be 'opened up'; they were to
receive the blessings of civilisation, they were to become a source of
eternal honour to himself and Egypt. The slave-trade, which flourished
there, was to be put down; the savage inhabitants were to become
acquainted with freedom, justice, and prosperity. Incidentally, a
government monopoly in ivory was to be established, and the place was to
be made a paying concern. Ismail, hopelessly in debt to a horde of
European creditors, looked to Europe to support him in his schemes.
Europe, and, in particular, England, with her passion for extraneous
philanthropy, was not averse. Sir Samuel Baker became the first Governor
of Equatoria, and now Gordon was to carry on the good work. In such
circumstances it was only natural that Gordon should consider himself a
special instrument in God's band. To put his disinterestedness beyond
doubt, he reduced his salary, which had been fixed at L10,000, to
L2,000. He took over his new duties early in 1874, and it was not long
before he had a first hint of disillusionment. On his way up the Nile,
he was received in state at Khartoum by the Egyptian Governor-General of
the Sudan, his immediate official superior.
The function ended in a prolonged banquet, followed by a mixed ballet of
soldiers and completely naked young women, who danced in a circle, beat
time with their feet, and accompanied their gestures with a curious
sound of clucking. At last the Austrian Consul, overcome by the
exhilaration of the scene, flung himself in a frenzy among the dancers;
the Governor-General, shouting with delight, seemed about to follow
suit, when Gordon abruptly left the room, and the party broke up in
confusion.
When, 1,500 miles to the southward, Gordon reached the seat of his
government, and the desolation of the Tropics closed over him, the
agonising nature of his task stood fully revealed. For the next three
years he struggled with enormous difficulties--with the confused and
horrible country, the appalling climate, the maddening insects and the
loathsome diseases, the indifference of subordinates and superiors, the
savagery of the slave-traders, and the hatred of the inhabitants. One by
one the small company of his European staff succumbed. With a few
hundred Egyptian soldiers he had to suppress insurrections, make roads,
establish fortified posts, and enforce the government monopoly of ivory.
All this he accomplished; he even succeeded in sending enough money to
Cairo to pay for the expenses of the expedition. But a deep gloom had
fallen upon his spirit. When, after a series of incredible obstacles had
been overcome, a steamer was launched upon the unexplored Albert Nyanza,
he turned his back upon the lake, leaving the glory of its navigation to
his Italian lieutenant, Gessi. 'I wish,' he wrote, 'to give a practical
proof of what I think regarding the inordinate praise which is given to
an explorer. ' Among his distresses and self-mortifications, he loathed
the thought of all such honours, and remembered the attentions of
English society with a snarl.
'When, D. V. , I get home, I do not dine out. My reminiscences of these
lands will not be more pleasant to me than the China ones. What I shall
have done, will be what I have done. Men think giving dinners is
conferring a favour on you . . . Why not give dinners to those who need
them? '
No! His heart was set upon a very different object.
'To each is allotted a distinct work, to each a destined goal; to some
the seat at the right hand or left hand of the Saviour. (It was not His
to give; it was already given--Matthew xx, 23. Again, Judas went to "HIS
OWN PLACE"--Acts i, 25. ) It is difficult for the flesh to accept: "Ye
are dead, ye have naught to do with the world". How difficult for anyone
to be circumcised from the world, to be as indifferent to its pleasures,
its sorrows, and its comforts as a corpse is! That is to know the
resurrection. '
But the Holy Bible was not his only solace. For now, under the parching
African sun, we catch glimpses, for the first time, of Gordon's hand
stretching out towards stimulants of a more material quality. For months
together, we are told, he would drink nothing but pure water; and then
. . . water that was not so pure. In his fits of melancholy, he would shut
himself up in his tent for days at a time, with a hatchet and a flag
placed at the door to indicate that he was not to be disturbed for any
reason whatever; until at last the cloud would lift, the signals would
be removed, and the Governor would reappear, brisk and cheerful.
During, one of these retirements, there was grave danger of a native
attack upon the camp. Colonel Long, the Chief of Staff, ventured, after
some hesitation, to ignore the flag and hatchet, and to enter the
forbidden tent. He found Gordon seated at a table, upon which were an
open Bible and an open bottle of brandy. Long explained the
circumstances, but could obtain no answer beyond the abrupt words--'You
are commander of the camp'--and was obliged to retire, nonplussed, to
deal with the situation as best he could. On the following morning,
Gordon, cleanly shaven, and in the full-dress uniform of the Royal
Engineers, entered Long's hut with his usual tripping step, exclaiming
'Old fellow, now don't be angry with me. I was very low last night.
Let's have a good breakfast--a little b. and s. Do you feel up to it? '
And, with these veering moods and dangerous restoratives, there came an
intensification of the queer and violent elements in the temper of the
man.
His eccentricities grew upon him. He found it more and more
uncomfortable to follow the ordinary course. Official routine was an
agony to him. His caustic and satirical humour expressed itself in a
style that astounded government departments.
