His chivalrous idea of wedlock was only natural, for he always attributed to Mrs Kingsley's sympathy and influence his success, saying that never but for her would he have become a writer. Writing to a friend on the subject of marriage, he says that it is his duty to hold the highest and most spiritual views, 'for God has shewed me these things in an eventful and blissful marriage history, and woe to me if I preach them not.'
Writing to his wife from the sea-side, where he had gone in search of health, he says: 'This place is perfect; but it seems a dream and imperfect without you. Kiss the darling ducks of children for me. How I long after them and their prattle. I delight in all the little ones in the street, for their sake, and continually I start and fancy I hear their voices outside. You do not know how I love them; nor did I hardly till I came here. Absence quickens love into consciousness.' – 'Blessed be God for the rest, though I never before felt the loneliness of being without the beloved being whose every look, and word, and motion are the key-notes of my life. People talk of love ending at the altar… Fools! I lay at the window all morning, thinking of nothing but home; how I long for it!' – 'Tell Rose and Maurice that I have got two pair of bucks' horns – one for each of them, huge old fellows, almost as big as baby.'
Writing from France to 'my dear little man,' as he calls his youngest son (for whom he wrote the Water Babies), he says: 'There is a little Egyptian vulture here in the inn; ask mother to shew you his picture in the beginning of the Bird book.' When smarting from severe attacks on his historical teaching at Cambridge, he could write to his wife: 'I have been very unhappy about your unhappiness about me, and cannot bear to think of your having a pang on my account.' From America he writes: 'My digestion is perfect, and I am in high spirits. But I am home-sick at times, and would give a finger to be one hour with you and G. and M.'
From such things; which, though they may appear little, are really the great things of life, or at least its heart's ease, Canon Kingsley got power to do and to suffer.
Coming out from service in Westminster Abbey, he caught a cold; but he made light of it, for he could think of nothing but the joy of returning with his wife to Eversley for Christmas and the quiet winter's work. No sooner had they returned home than Mrs Kingsley became seriously ill. On being told that her life was in the greatest danger, Kingsley said: 'My own death-warrant was signed with those words.' His ministrations in his wife's sick-room shewed the intensity of his faith, as he strengthened the weak, encouraged the fearful speaking of an eternal reunion, of the indestructibility of that married love, which if genuine on earth, could only, he thought, be severed for a brief moment.
At this time Kingsley was himself ill, and on the 28th December he had to take to his bed, for symptoms of pneumonia came on rapidly. The weather was bitter, and he had been warned that his recovery depended on the same temperature being kept up in his bedroom and on his never leaving it; but one day he indiscreetly leaped out of bed, came into his wife's room for a few moments, and taking her hand in his, he said: 'This is heaven; don't speak;' but after a short silence, a severe fit of coughing came on, he could say nothing more, and they never met again. For a few days the sick husband and wife wrote to each other in pencil, but it then became 'too painful, too tantalising,' and the letters ceased. A few days after this, the preacher, poet, novelist, naturalist died, January 23, 1875, and was universally lamented, for England had lost one of her most estimable men – not great, in the ordinary sense of the word, for Kingsley could lay no claim to be a profound thinker. His philanthropy confused his perceptions, as when in his writings he denounced large towns and mill-owners, and proposed to restore the population to the land. Such 'socialism' as this would throw us back into ignorance and poverty, instead of solving the difficult modern problem of rich and poor. Kingsley was great only as regards the feelings. There he may be said to have made his mark.
How many of Charles Kingsley's works will last? Some (with whom he himself would probably have agreed) think that Hypatia and a few songs, such as the Sands of Dee and Three Fishers, are his only contributions to English literature likely to endure. It may be that he had too many irons in the fire for any of them to become white-hot. We prefer to think of him as a minister of the Gospel, who not only preached piety but shewed it at home, by being a dutiful son, a wise father, and a husband whose love during thirty-six years 'never stooped from its lofty level to a hasty word, an impatient gesture, or a selfish act, in sickness or in health, in sunshine or in storm, by day or by night.'
'He was a true and perfect knight,' is our verdict, on rising from the perusal of his biography. It is surely a great encouragement to think that all who cultivate their hearts may, without his genius, hope to imitate the home-virtues of one who, however great in other respects, was, in our opinion, greater at home.
THE LAST OF THE HADDONS
CHAPTER XXXVI. – WAGES
After the bride and bridegroom were gone, occurred the first slip in my behaviour. The rest of the company had returned to the house, and I suppose I must have stood in the road – gazing in the direction the carriage had taken, the sound of the distant bells floating faintly towards me in the summer air – so long as to be unconscious of the lapse of time, when gently and lightly a hand was laid upon mine, and it was drawn under Robert Wentworth's arm.
'You are wanted up there, Mary,' he said cheerfully. 'Mrs Tipper does not, I think, find herself quite equal to Mrs Dallas and Mrs Trafford; to say nothing of two discontented bride's-maids, and a father who came here under protest, and was only allowed to perform half the duty he came to perform. You took that out of his hands, you know; the giving away was virtually yours.' Going on to talk amusingly of the incongruous materials which went to make up the wedding-party, and so giving me time to recover my self-command. It was very soon put to the test. There was, to begin with, some pretty banter from Mrs Chichester to parry, when we reached the green terrace, where the guests were sitting, to enjoy the air and lovely view, and from which I suddenly remembered they could see the part of the road where I had been standing.
'We began to fear you must be ill, Miss Haddon, seeing you stand so long motionless in the road. It was quite a relief to see you move at last when Mr Wentworth joined you – it really was!'
Probably Robert Wentworth considered that this kind of thing was what I required, for he left me to it, and devoted himself to the not very easy task of trying to reconcile the two pretty bride's-maids; gravely listening to their assurances that the whole affair had been shockingly mismanaged from first to last! I soon had enough to do to reply to the patter of questions with which I was assailed from Marian and Mrs Chichester.
Where in the world had I been hiding myself all these months? Had I really come into a large fortune, and turned Mr Dallas off, as people said; or was it the other thing? As I did not know what 'the other thing' was, I could not answer for that; but acknowledged to having been fortunate; smiling to myself as I wondered what they would think of my idea of good fortune. Of course they would know what my real position was in time; but for the present I was mischievous enough to let them imagine any improbable thing they pleased. But there was one thing which they must not be allowed to have any doubt about, and that was my regard for Philip and Lilian, and hearty concurrence in the marriage.
'I am so glad – so very glad; because we can now speak very decidedly upon the point. People are so terribly unkind and censorious; are they not, Miss Haddon?'
'Some are, Mrs Chichester; yet I think, on the whole, censorious people do a great deal less mischief than they are supposed to do. My experience is happily small in such matters; but I believe that censorious people are generally