Mystic London by Charles Maurice Davies (best mystery novels of all time .txt) 📖
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- Author: Charles Maurice Davies
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He was not a pleasant man to know. He had an unrelenting sincerity which often turned into severity. Yet he had much tenderness. He had a soul like a Red Indian's—all tomahawk and truth, until the literary passion came and added humour to it. He demands in his vigorous doggerel:—
In such a method, too, and yet not miss
My end, thy good? Why may it not be done?
Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none.
Like all men of original genius, this stout-minded pot-mender had unbounded confidence in himself. He was under no delusion as to his own powers. No man knew better what he was about. He could take the measure of all the justices about him, and he knew it. Every shallow-headed gentleman in Bedfordshire towns and villages was made to wince under his picturesque and satiric tongue. To clergymen, bishops, lawyers, and judges he gave names which all his neighbours knew. Mr. Pitiless, Mr. Hardheart, Mr. Forget-good, Mr. No-truth, Mr. Haughty—thus he named the disagreeable dignitaries of the town of Mansoul.
At first he was regarded by his "pastors and masters" as a mere wilful, noisy, praying sectary. Very soon they discovered that he was a fighting preacher. As tinker or Christian he always had his sleeves turned up. When he had to try his own cause he put in the jury-box Mr. True-Heart, Mr. Upright, Mr. Hate-Bad, Mr. See-Truth, and other amiable persons. His witnesses were Mr. Know-All, Mr. Tell-True, Mr. Hate-Lies, Mr. Vouch-Truth, Mr. Did-See. His Town Clerk was Mr. Do-Right, the Recorder was Mr. Conscience, the gaoler was Mr. True-Man, Lord Understanding was on the bench, and the Judge bears the dainty name of the "Golden-headed Prince."
Bunyan's adversaries are always a bad set. They live in Villain's Lane, in Blackmouth Street, or Blasphemer's Row, or Drunkard's Alley, or Rascal's Corner. They are the sons of one Beastly, whose mother bore them in Flesh Square: they live at the house of one Shameless, at the sign of the Reprobate, next door to the Descent into the Pit, whose retainers are Mr. Flatter, Mr. Impiety, Mr. False-Peace, Mr. Covetousness, who are housed by one Mr. Simple, in Folly's Yard.
Bunyan had a perfect wealth of sectarian scurrility at his command. His epithets are at times unquotable and ferocious. When, however, his friends are at the bar, the witnesses against them comprise the choicest scoundrels of all time—Mr. Envy, Mr. Pick-thank, and others, whose friends are Lord Carnal-Delight, Lord Luxurious, Lord Lechery, Sir Having Greedy, and similar villanous people of quality. The Judge's name is now Lord Hate-Good. The Jury consist of Mr. No-Good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-Lust, Mr. Live-Loose, Mr. Heady, Mr. Hate-Light, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty, and Mr. Implacable, with Mr. Blindman for Foreman.
Never was such an infamous gang impanelled. Rancour and rage and vindictiveness, and every passion awakened in the breasts of the strong by local insolence and legal injustice, is supplied by Bunyan with epithets of immense retaliative force. He is the greatest name-maker among authors. He was a spiritual Comanche. He prayed like a savage. He said himself, when describing the art of the religious rhetorician—an art of which he was the greatest master of his time:—
To catch the fish; what engines doth he make!
Behold! how he engageth all his wits,
Also his snares, lines, angles, hooks, and nets;
Yet fish there be that neither hook nor line,
Nor snare, nor net, nor engine can make thine;
They must be grop'd for, and be tickled too,
Or they will not be catch'd, whate'er you do.
Bunyan never tickled the sinner. It was not his way. He carried a prong. He pricked the erring. He published a pamphlet to suggest what ought to be done to holy pedestrians, whose difficulties lay rearward. He put detonating balls under their feet which exploded as they stepped and alarmed them along. He lined the celestial road with horrors. If they turned their heads they saw a fiend worse than Lot's wife who was merely changed into a pillar of sweet all-preserving salt. Bunyan's unfortunate converts who looked back fell into a pit filled with fire, where they howled and burnt for evermore.
Ah! with what pleasure must the great Bedfordshire artist have contemplated his masterly pages as day by day he added to them the portrait of some new scoundrel, or painted with dexterous and loving hand the wholesome outlines of some honest man, or devised some new phrase which like a new note or new colour would delight singer or painter for generations yet to come. He must have strode proudly along his cell as he put his praise and his scorn into imperishable similes.
But Bunyan had never been great had he been merely disagreeable. He had infinite wit in him. It was his carnal genius that saved him. He wrote sixty books, and two of them—the "Siege of the Town of Mansoul" and the "Pilgrim's Progress"—exceed all ever written for creative swiftness of imagination, racy English speech, sentences of literary art, cunningness in dialogue, satire, ridicule, and surpassing knowledge of the picturesque ways of the obscure minds of common men. In his pages men rise out of the ground—they always come up on an open space so that they can be seen. They talk naturally, so that you know them at once; and they act without delay, so that you never forget them. They surprise you, delight you, they interest you, they instruct you, and disappear. They never linger, they never weary you. Incidents new and strange arise at every step in his story. The scene changes like the men and their adventures. Now it is field or morass, plain or bypath, bog or volcano, castle or cottage, sandy scorching desert or cold river; the smoke of the bottomless pit or bright, verdant, delectable mountains and enchanted lands where there are no bishops, no gaols, and no tinkers; where aboundeth grapes, calico, brides, eternal conversation, and trumpets. The great magician's genius forsakes him when he comes to the unknown regions, and he knoweth no more than the rest of us. But while his foot is on the earth he steps like a king among writers. His Christian is no fool. He is cunning of fence, suspicious, sagacious, witty, satirical, abounding in invective, and broad, bold, delicious insolence. Bye-Ends is a subtle, evasive knave drawn with infinite skill.
Had Bunyan merely preached the Gospel he had no more been remembered than thousands of his day who are gratefully forgotten—had he prayed to this time he had won no statue; but his literary genius lives when the preacher is very dead.
He saw with such vividness that the very passions and wayward moods of men stood apart and distinct in his sight, and he gave names to them and endowed them with their natural speech. He created new men out of characteristics of mind, and sent them into the world in shapes so defined and palpable that men know them for evermore. It was the way of his age for writers to give names to their adversaries. Bunyan imitated this in his life of Mr. Badman. Others did this, but Bunyan did it better than any man. His invention was marvellous, and he had besides the faculty of the dramatist.
If any man wrote the adventures of a Co-operator, he would have to tell of his meeting with Mr. Obstinate, who will not listen to him, and wants to pull him back. We all get the company of Mr. Pliable, who is persuaded without being convinced, who at the first splash into difficulty crawls out and turns back with a cowardly adroitness. We have all encountered the stupidity of Mr. Ignorance, which nothing can enlighten. We know Mr. Turnaway, who comes from the town of Apostacy, whose face we cannot perfectly see. Others merely gave names, he drew characters, he made the qualities of his men speak; you knew them by their minds better than by their dress. That is why succeeding ages have read the "Pilgrim's Progress," because the same people who met that extraordinary traveller are always turning up in the way of every man who has a separate and a high purpose, and is bent upon carrying it out. Manners change, but humanity has still its old ways. It is because Bunyan painted these that his writing lasts like a picture by one of the old masters who painted for all time.
Such is an outline of the paper, which was interesting from its associations, and only spoilt by the cough. We had had Bunyan in pretty well every shape possible during the last few weeks. Certainly one of the most original is this which presents the man of unbounded faith in the light of utter scepticism.
CHAPTER XXXI. AL FRESCO INFIDELITY.In a series of papers like the present it is necessary, every now and then, to pause and apologize, either for the nature of the work in general, or for certain particulars in its execution calculated to shock good people whose feelings one would wish to respect. Having so long been engaged in the study of infidelity in London, I may, perhaps, be permitted to speak with something like authority in the matter; and I have no hesitation in saying that I believe the policy of shirking the subject is the most fatal and foolish one that could be adopted. Not only does such a course inspire people, especially young people, with the idea that there is something very fascinating in infidelity—something which, if allowed to meet their gaze, would be sure to attract and convince them—than which nothing is farther from the truth—not only so, however, but many of the statements and most of the arguments which sound plausibly enough on the glib tongue of a popular speaker read very differently indeed, when put down in cold-blooded letter-press, and published in the pages of a book. I protest strongly against making a mystery of London infidelity. It has spread and is spreading, I know, and it is well the public should know; but I believe there would be no such antidote to it as for people to be fully made aware how and where it is spreading. That is the rôle I have all along proposed to myself: not to declaim against any man or any system, not to depreciate or disguise the truth, but simply to describe. I cannot imagine a more legitimate method of doing my work.
I suppose no one will regard it in any way as an indulgence or a luxury on the part of a clergyman, who be it remembered, is, during a portion of the Sunday, engaged in ministering to Christian people, that he should devote another portion of that day to hearing Christ vilified, and having his own creed torn to pieces. I myself feel that my own belief is not shaken, but in a tenfold degree confirmed by all I have heard and seen and written of infidelity; and therefore I cannot concede the principle that to convey my experiences to others is in any way dangerous. Take away the halo of mystery that surrounds this subject, and it would possess very slender attractions indeed.
It was, for instance, on what has always appeared to me among the most affecting epochs of our Christian year, the Fifth Sunday after Easter—Christ's last Sunday upon earth—that, by one of those violent antitheses, I went to Gibraltar Walk, Bethnal Green Road, to hear Mr. Ramsey there demolish the very system which, for many years, it has been
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