by Grant Allen
‘But nature makes that mean; over that art
Which you say adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes.’
Not as adventitious therefore will the wise man regard the faith which is in him. The highest truth he sees he will fearlessly utter; knowing that, let what may come of it, he is thus playing his right part in the world — knowing that if he can effect the change he aims at — well; if not — well also; though not ‘so’ well (p. 123).
ID acknowledging Mr. Edmund Gosse’s ‘Life’ of his father, Philip Henry Gosse, a naturalist of deservedly high repute in a past generation, Allen wrote
Cookham Dean,
July 7, 1896.
My dear Gosse, — Many thanks for your kind present of your father’s ‘Life,’ and also for the flattering inscription you have put in it. I am now engaged in reading it, and find, as I anticipated, that it is a most interesting and apparently faithful portrait of a most fascinating personality. The very traits which would deter some readers amuse and attract me; for I have never cared (born rebel that I am) for the great organisations; it is the man who, in religious thought or in science, strikes out a line for himself that appeals to my sympathies. Your father’s marked and intense individuality takes my fancy much, and I expect to get many useful hints for character from your excellent Memoir. — Yours very sincerely,
— GRANT ALLEN.
The admiration which Allen thus expresses was the more sincere because Mr. Gosse’s ‘individuality’ took the shape of adherence to the exclusive tenets of the sect known as ‘Plymouth Brethren,’ which would have stood ‘four square to all the winds that blow’ against so irreverent and daring a creed as Allen put into mellifluous and noble verse for recital at a dinner of the Omar Khayyâm Club a few evenings before he penned the foregoing letter: —
OMAR AT MARLOW
Too long: have we dallied, my Omar, too long,
With metres austere and iambic:
A rapider measure I ask for my song,
Anapaestic, abrupt, dithyrambic.
The reddest of roses my locks shall entwine,
And — ho there! Luigi or Carlo!
A beaker this way of the ruddiest wine
That lurks in the cellars of Marlow!
Is it chance, is it fate, that has glided our crew
To a nook by the eddying: river,
Where Shelley gazed down upon ripples that woo,
And rushes that listen and quiver?
He loved not to look on the wine as it flows
Blood-red from the flag:on that holds it;
Yet who could so pierce to the soul of a rose
Through the chalice of bloom that enfolds it?
Not as he, not as he, was the Seer of the East,
The Master and Mag:e that we follow;
He knew, as he smiled on the amorous feast,
That the world — and the wine-cup — are hollow;
But he knew that the Power, high-sceptred above,
Is more than the anchorite spectre;
That the world may be filled with the greatness of love,
And the wine-cap with roseate nectar.
No saint — and no sot — was Omar, I wis,
Bat a singer serene, philosophic;
For Philosophy mellows her month to a kiss
With each step she takes toward the tropic.
Pale gold is the grain in the vats of the north;
Lash purple thy grape, Algeciras;
And the creed that is cold by the mists of the Forth
Glows pink in the gardens of Shiraz.
Of fate and foreknowledge, of freedom and doom,
He sang; of the bud and the blossom;
Life, whirled in a flash from its birth to its tomb;
Death, gathering all in his bosom;
Of Allah, who, cloaked by the World and the Word,
Still veils his inscrutable features;
Of man, and his debt to his Maker and Lord;
Of God, and his debt to his creatures.
A rebel our Shelley! a rebel our Mage!
That brotherly link shall suffice us;
Tis in vain that the zealots, O Prophet and Sage,
From his creed — and from thine — would entice us;
We seek not to stray from the path that ye trod;
We seek but to widen its border;
If systems that be are the order of God,
Revolt is a part of the order.
But whither, oh, whither, my pétulant Muse,
To heights that outsoar and surpass us?
Not thine to be sprent with ineffable dews
On perilous peaks of Parnassus;
Leave loftier themes of the fortunes of man
To our orient’s occident herald,
Who grafted a rose of thy stock, Gulistan,
Upon English sweetbriar — Fitz-Gerald!
These three be the tutelar gods of our feast,
And, to-night, ‘twere a sin to divide them;
Two bards of the West, and a bard of the East,
With one spirit to quicken and guide them.
So Luigi or Carlo, a beaker again,
This way, of your liveliest Pommard!
We’ll drink to a trio whose star shall not wane —
Here’s Shelley, Fitz-Gerald, and Omar!
The six-weeks’ trip to Egypt in November till mid-December 1889 gratified Allen’s long-cherished desire to see a country whose monuments interested him chiefly for their religious significance. The journey had its drawbacks, partly on account of anxiety about Mrs. Allen’s health, and partly because of the repulsive sides of Eastern life — the dirt, the squalor, and the mendicancy. But Allen never regretted a visit which he had no desire to repeat, and which yielded a store of material confirming him in the ghost-theory of the origin of religion learned at the feet of Mr. Herbert Spencer. The value of that material was enhanced because the conclusions to which it pointed seemed to him to fall into line with those reached by Mr. Frazer in his ‘Golden Bough,’ a book which influenced Allen profoundly. Agile in acting on any hint, he made, as has been already stated, the central idea of that work the plot of one of his best stories, ‘The Great Taboo’; but Mr. Frazer’s influence is seen in more sober directions, as in the translation of the ‘Attis’ and the ‘Evolution of the Idea of God.’ That he had aptly learned to do ‘the sensational things that please the editors’ is shown not so much in the ‘Tents of Shem’ (1891), wherein some Algerian experiences are utilised, as in his coming out the winner of the thousand pounds prize offered for a novel by the proprietors of ‘Tit-Bits.’ Most of his writings, from a certain sprightliness and note of aggressiveness, brought him numbers of approving or protesting letters, rarely, it is probable, letters of the following laughter-moving type, which may have been penned by the individual who, on hearing the announcement of a lecture on Keats, asked, ‘What are Keats?’ For charity’s sake, the writer’s name and address (a West-end one) are withheld: —
Oct. 15,1893.
Dear Sir, — Pardon the liberty I am taking. In your clever story of ‘The Great Ruby Robbery you mention Browning being splendid for the nerves. Is there such a thing, would you give me the address to obtain. I am a dreadful sufferer of nervousness, under such circumstances you will accept my apology for troubling. — Yours faithfully,
GRANT ALLEN., Esq.,
‘Strand Magazine’ Office, Southampton Street.
‘What’s Bred — in — the — Bone’ (1891) called forth a — host — of — petitions for loans (always temporary!) from less fortunate brethren and sisters of the craft, compliance with which would have cleared his pockets of thrice the sum paid him. More agreeable letters followed the issue of his daring, and, in the judgement of a majority of critics, successful translation of the ‘Attis’ (1892), ‘the greatest poem in the Latin language... the finest flower of the Celtic genius infiltrated by the mystic and mysterious charm of the Oriental imagination.’ (Allen had already sug
gested, in a footnote to ‘Physiological Æsthetics,’ that Catullus was a Celt) In this venture, the classical scholar, the poet, and the anthropologist, were manifest, but it is to the last-named that the motive of the translation is due. In an essay which follows the text and translation, Frazer’s ‘Golden Bough’ is dexterously worked into the argument of the chapters of Herbert Spencer’s ‘Principles of Sociology,’ wherein the ghost-theory is formulated. All gods, it is argued, were originally ghosts, and ghosts, as the spirits of dead ancestors, supply the ‘germ-plasm’ o£ religion. The prevalence of belief in tree-gods is explained by the planting of trees on graves, the ghosts of the buried passing into the trees: hence, too, the probable origin of cultivation, the grave being the earliest place sown with seeds. To those who regard ancestor-worship as a secondary stage in the evolution of religion, the argument will remain ‘ as unconvincing as it does to Mr. Frazer and Mr. Andrew Lang (who, by the way, are as much at issue with Professor Max Müller and his school as is Mr. Spencer); while to Mr. Herbert Spencer it supplies a missing link in his chain of facts. It is an advantage that the following letters from these several authorities (by whose permission they are here printed) were found among Allen’s papers: —
62 Avenue Road, Regent Park, N.W., 26th Nov., 1892.
My dear Allen, — I shall really begin to think there is some value in classical erudition, considering the use you are putting it to. Would that most men who have familiarised themselves with ancient superstitions knew as well what to do with them!
Thanks both for the book and for its contents. I really feel personally indebted to you for strengthening so admirably the ghost-theory. You have supplied a link which was wanting; for although I have given reasons for the belief that the tree-worship was really the worship of the inhabiting spirits, yet there lacked all explanation of the way in which there arose the idea of inhabitation. This you have supplied in a most conclusive manner. Not that you will convince Max Müller and Co. Men in their position are beyond the reach of reason. I suppose you are away in the sunny south, where I should very much like to be with you, could I get there. — Sincerely yours,
HERBERT SPENCER.
Trinity College, Cambridge,
28th November 1892.
My dear Sir, — Allow me to thank you for the kind present of the ‘Attis,’ and for the more than kind dedication which accompanied it I confess it gave me pleasure, though I cannot quite accept the position of authority in which you would seem to place me. I regard most or all of my own speculations on primitive religion as provisional, and likely to be replaced by truer views when the facts of savage life are more fully known. Hence I hold them very lightly myself, and wish that others would do so too.
Your translation of the ‘Attis’ seems to me admirable. It catches the spirit and flavour of the original, and there is a fine rush and sweep in the flow of the metre. I have read with interest your instructive essay on the Origin of Tree-worship, but I cannot say that I am convinced by it. You seem to reject the theory of animism, and to hold that the only spirits in which primitive man believes are the ghosts of his ancestors. I, on the contrary, accept the theory of animism as established. Primitive man, it seems to me, instinctively attributes conscious life to all or to most inanimate objects, quite apart from any idea that the ghosts of his ancestors are about, and may be in those objects. In particular, he supposes that striking natural objects, such as the sun, rapid rivers, great rocks, and tall trees, are the abode or the embodiment of powerful spirits whom it is desirable to propitiate. This instinctive belief, it appears to me, is quite sufficient to account for tree-worship, sun-worship, stone-worship, etc., and it is, in my opinion, a mistake to attempt to resolve these and all other forms of primitive worship (as you seem to do) into ancestor-worship. At the same time, I agree with you so far that I believe ancestor-worship, or the fear of ghosts, to have been on the whole the most important factor in the evolution of religious belief. This view is perfectly consistent with attributing, as I attribute, great though subordinate importance to tree-worship, sun-worship, etc., and with holding that these latter worships have roots independent of ancestor-worship. But I am only re-stating the old theory of animism, which you have apparently discarded. To show you that I have not wholly overlooked the importance of the primitive ghost, at least in some of his aspects, I send you a copy of a paper on Burial Customs which I wrote some years ago [‘On Certain Burial Customs as Illustrative of the Primitive Theory of the Soul.’— ‘Journal of the Anthropological Institute,’ August 1885].
Again thanking you for your book, and for the very kind terms in which you speak of my work, I am, yours very truly,
J. G. FRAZER.
GRANT ALLEN., Esq.
Northcliff, St. Andrews, Fife,
Nov. 24(1893).
Dear Allen, — I have written a useless little notice of your book on Trees [the reference is to a leader on the ‘Attis’ in the ‘Daily News,’ 28th Nov. 1892], which comes to ‘this, that it needs an encyclopaedic study of burial customs (many of which give vegetation no chance, as cave-burial) and of tree-worship, before one can accept your hypothesis. In one remark of Macdonald’s [the Rev. Duff Macdonald’s ‘Africans,’ of which Allen made considerable use] he seems to make against your view; they do worship under a tree — if not, they erect a shade. That is, ‘shade’ is what they want in that climate, and a tree comes cheapest. By every old bower, cottage, hall, or ruined site, you’ll find an ash. Ancestral spirit? Not much; a Scots Act of Parliament ordered them to be planted for spear-shafts.
The various Greek gods ‘dendritis’ need looking up, I think. My own opinion is that trees were worshipped for all sorts of different reasons, yours among them very likely. There is a good instance in Kohl. Boilyas live in a tree, let us say, you think because it grows above a grave. Perhaps, or perhaps just because it is comfortable quarters, as Charles II. and Gordon of Earlston discovered. Or Is it an arboreal survival? This might be easily and plausibly maintained. The fact is one lifetime would hardly be enough for a thorough study of tree-worship alone, and Liddell and Scott would be a trifle to the space needed. I have not the books nor the spirits for an investigation. I hardly know a trochee from an iambic, but I fancy you are right on the metre. — Yours very truly,
A. LANG.
Mr. Lang tells me that ‘the reference in Kohl meant this. A Red Indian more or less revered a certain tree, not as connected with ancestor-worship, but because it once curtseyed to him.’
The following letter makes brief reference to the foregoing, and throws a glimpse on Allen’s life abroad at this period
Hôtel du Cap, Antibes, Feb. 18, (1893).
My dear Clodd, — For weeks I have been going to write to you, but somehow time failed; and yesterday it was quite a pleasure to us both to see your dear handwriting once more....
For ourselves, nothing very startling in any way has happened to us. We have had perhaps a less interesting group of visitors on the whole this year than oftenest falls to us; but even so, we have had dear Dr. Bird, who is always delightful, and his sister, who is almost more so; not to mention Spender of the ‘Westminster Gazette’ and his mother; Saunders, the Radical member; and Clark, the Crofter man who sits for Caithness — both accompanied by wives who added to the gaiety of the hotel; while a pretty girl or two has appeared as an oasis in the desert of old maids to lighten our darkness. (This confusion of metaphors clearly betrays my Irish origin.) We remain here till the fifth of March, and then go on to Florence. Thither, the Birds will accompany us. Thence, I go on to Rome, but it is not yet decided whether dear Nellie will go with me, or remain in Florence, or take a middle course and stop at Frascati or Albano. I am mugging up my Baedeker in anticipation, but I confess the vastness of all there is to see rather appals me. I wish you could have been there with me. Sightseeing is so much pleasanter when one does it with somebody else whose tastes are similar.
Of literary news I have very little. I have done hardly any work thi
s winter, and the little I have done has not yet appeared. I like my articles for the ‘Westminster Gazette’ [these were reprinted under the title ‘Post Prandial Philosophy’], but I don’t know how long the Editor will permit me to speak my mind out with such comparative freedom. I had most interesting letters about the ‘Attis’ from a great many folklorists — amongst others Jacobs, whom I have never had time to answer. Will you kindly tell him, if you see him, that my silence is not due to intentional rudeness, but to sheer inability. Even with the aid of my typewriter, I find it hard to get through all I have to do in the twenty-four hours. A man who would invent a day of forty-eight would be conferring a great benefit on suffering humanity. And yet, when one comes to think how tired one is at the end of the existing day, any addition to it would be rather terrible to contemplate....
Love to all from both, my dear fellow. If our house is finished next spring, you must sometimes run down and rest with us from a Saturday to Monday. — In haste, ever yours most affectionately,
GRANT ALLEN.
The question of removing to a more bracing place than Dorking had often been mooted, longing eyes being cast upon Hind Head, whose ‘radiating spurs are perfumed with the aromatic resins of garrulous pine-woods.’ There Allen built a charming cottage on the ‘Hilltop’ overlooking the Devil’s Punch-bowl, removing thither in 1893. The change justified itself, because it enabled him thenceforth to remain in England in the winter, and to be free for trips abroad in the spring, when the brighter and longer days could be utilised for visits to the renowned art galleries, whose contents are described in his, unhappily, incomplete series of ‘Historical Guides.’ Perugia does not appear among the places named in the foregoing letter, but it was there that in the spring of 1873, to quote from a prefatory note, he wrote, ‘for the first time in my life wholly and solely to satisfy my own taste and my own conscience,’
