Mark Rutherford’s Deliverance
By Mark Rutherford.
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Editor’s Note
Before I continue my friend Rutherford’s autobiography, I wish to correct a misunderstanding in the minds of some of my reviewers. It has been supposed that I set him up as hero. This is the very last thing I should have thought of doing. I always knew him to be weak, the victim of impressions, especially of self-created impressions; and I always pitied him for his strange propensity to entangle himself in problems which he had not the power to solve. I knew also that he was morbid, and defective in that gaiety of heart which is so necessary to conquer the world. But I knew also that he had great qualities, a deep sincerity, a capacity of almost passionate affection; and he was to me a type of many excellent persons whom this century troubles with ceaseless speculations, yielding no conclusions and no peace. After half a life had been passed in a struggle in which he was well-nigh overcome, his mind seemed to find rest, and his sinews became thickened and invigorated. The questions which had tormented him remained unanswered, but they had lost their terrible urgency; and somehow or other, by what means I can hardly tell, he had fought his way to that victory which every man must in some measure achieve if he is to live.
After the death of Mardon there is a blank of many months in the Rutherford papers. Wollaston and Theresa had emigrated to America, and nothing was ever heard of them. Rutherford, once more thrown out of employment, had taken one small room in a street on the right-hand side of the Camden Road, a little short of the point where the North London Railway Station now is. It is here that his story begins again.
“Ego doceo sine strepitu verborum, sine confusione opinionum, sine fastu honoris, sine impugnatione argumentorum.”
“I teach without noise of words, without confusion of opinions, without the arrogance of honour, without the assault of arguments.”
De Imitatione Christi, chapter LXIII
“Come what come may,
Macbeth, Act I, Scene 3
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”
Ἅδην δ’ ἔχων βοηθον οὐ τρέμω σκιάς.
“Having death for my friend, I tremble not at shadows.”
Unknown Greek Author
Mark Rutherford’s Deliverance
I
Newspapers
When I had established myself in my new lodgings in Camden Town, I found I had ten pounds in my pocket, and again there was no outlook. I examined carefully every possibility. At last I remembered that a relative of mine, who held some office in the House of Commons, added to his income by writing descriptive accounts of the debates, throwing in by way of supplement any stray scraps of gossip which he was enabled to collect. The rules of the House as to the admission of strangers were not so strict then as they are now, and he assured me that if I could but secure a commission from a newspaper, he could pass me into one of the galleries, and, when there was nothing to be heard worth describing, I could remain in the lobby, where I should by degrees find many opportunities of picking up intelligence which would pay. So far, so good; but how to obtain the commission? I managed to get hold of a list of all the country papers, and I wrote to nearly everyone, offering my services. I am afraid that I somewhat exaggerated them, for I had two answers, and, after a little correspondence, two engagements. This was an unexpected stroke of luck; but alas! both journals circulated in the same district. I never could get together more stuff than would fill about a column and a half, and consequently I was obliged, with infinite pains, to vary, so that it could not be recognised, the form of what, at bottom, was essentially the same matter. This was work which would have been disagreeable enough, if I had not now ceased in a great measure to demand what was agreeable. In years past I coveted a life, not of mere sensual enjoyment—for that I never cared—but a life which should be filled with activities of the noblest kind, and
