Collections and RecollectionsRussell, George William Erskine
History
Collections and Recollections
Russell, George William Erskine
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
you feel yourself in the presence of a born ecclesiastic, called from
his cradle by an irresistible vocation to a separate and sanctified
career. When you see him on the platform of some great public meeting,
pouring forth argument, appeal, sarcasm, anecdote, fun, and pathos in a
never-ceasing flood of vivid English, you feel that you are under the
spell of a born orator. And yet again, when you see the priest of
Sunday, the orator of Monday, presiding on Tuesday with easy yet
finished courtesy at the hospitable table of the most beautiful
dining-room in London, or welcomed with equal warmth for his racy humour
and his unfailing sympathy in the homes of his countless friends, you
feel that here is a man naturally framed for society, in whom his father
and grandfather live again. Truly a combination of hereditary gifts is
displayed in Canon Wilberforce; and the social agreeableness of London
received a notable addition when Mr. Gladstone transferred him from
Southampton to Dean's Yard.
Of agreeable Canons there is no end, and the Chapter of Westminster is
peculiarly rich in them. Mr. Gore's ascetic saintliness of life conceals
from the general world, but not from the privileged circle of his
intimate friends, the high breeding of a great Whig family and the
philosophy of Balliol. Archdeacon Furse has the refined scholarship and
delicate literary sense which characterized Eton in its days of glory.
Dr. Duckworth's handsome presence has long been welcomed in the very
highest of all social circles. Mr. Eyton's massive bulk and warm heart,
and rugged humour and sturdy common sense, produce the effect of a
clerical Dr. Johnson. But perhaps we must turn our back on the Abbey
and pursue our walk along the Thames Embankment as far as St. Paul's if
we want to discover the very finest flower of canonical culture and
charm, for it blushes unseen in the shady recesses of Amen Court. Henry
Scott Holland, Canon of St. Paul's, is beyond all question one of the
most agreeable men of his time. In fun and geniality and warm-hearted
hospitality he is a worthy successor of Sydney Smith, whose official
house he inhabits; and to those elements of agreeableness he adds
certain others which his admirable predecessor could scarcely have
claimed. He has all the sensitiveness of genius, with its sympathy, its
versatility, its unexpected turns, its rapid transitions from grave to
gay, its vivid appreciation of all that is beautiful in art and nature,
literature and life. His temperament is essentially musical, and,
indeed, it was from him that I borrowed, in a former paragraph, my
description of Jenny Lind and her effect on her hearers. No man in
London, I should think, has so many and such devoted friends in every
class and stratum; and those friends acknowledge in him not only the
most vivacious and exhilarating of social companions, but one of the
moral forces which have done most to quicken their consciences and lift
their lives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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