Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 09: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great ReformersHubbard, Elbert
History
Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 09: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers
Hubbard, Elbert
Reformers
How much legal lore Cromwell acquired in London is a matter of dim and
dusty doubt. That his vocabulary was slightly extended there is quite
probable, for later he uses the word "law-wolf," thus supplying Alfred
Henry Lewis with a phrase that was to be sent clattering down the
corridors of time. That Alfred Henry may have been absolutely
innocent of the truth that he was using a classicism and not a Kansas
mouth-filler is quite probable. In London, Oliver took unto himself a
wife, he being twenty-one and three weeks over. The lady was the
daughter of a client of the firm for which Oliver Cromwell was a
process-server. That he successfully served papers on the young lady
is undeniable, for he led her captive to Saint Giles' Church,
Cripplegate, and they were there married August, Sixteen Hundred
Twenty, the clerk being so overcome (doubtless by the presence of
Oliver Cromwell, the coming Lord Protector of England, Scotland and
Ireland) that he neglected to put in the day of the month. In the same
church sleeps one John Milton, who was much respected and beloved by
our Oliver, and who proved that a Puritan could write poetry.
The father of Oliver having died, as before truthfully stated, first
prophesying that his son would grow up a ne'er-do-well, this son took
his new-found wife up to the Fen Country to live with his mother and
sister. That he would be Lord Protector of the Farm seems quite the
proper thing to say, but that he was dutiful, modest, teachable, is a
fact.
Here he lived, with babies coming along one a year, hard-working,
simple, earnest, for seven years escaping the censorious eye of Clio,
weaver of history. Happy lives make dull biographies. Also, we can
truthfully say that nothing tames a man like marriage. Take marriage,
business, responsibility, and a dash of poverty, mix, and we get an
ideal condition. These things make for a noble discontent and the
industry and unrest that unlimber progress.
Then comes that peculiar psychic experience which is often the lot of
men born to make epochs, who also have souls fit to assert themselves.
We find our Oliver consumed with a strange despair, biting world-
sorrow, Tophet pouring black smoke into the universe of his being--
temptations in the wilderness!
Men of neutral quality do not make good Christians-militant. Our
Oliver was not neutral. Out of the black night of unrest and through
the thick darkness, he gradually saw the eternal ways and got good
reckonings by aid of the celestial guiding stars.
So Oliver emerged at twenty-seven, alive with cosmic consciousness--a
God-intoxicated man. That Deity spoke through him, he never doubted.
Thereafter he was to be religious, not only on Sundays and Wednesday
evenings, but always and forever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account