The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. 1 (of 2): As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China and Japan — John Shaqi
The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. 1 (of 2): As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China and JapanMichie, Alexander
History
The Englishman in China During the Victorian Era, Vol. 1 (of 2): As Illustrated in the Career of Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., D.C.L., Many Years Consul and Minister in China and Japan
Michie, Alexander
Alcock, Rutherford, Sir, 1809-1897; China -- Foreign relations -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- Foreign relations -- China; Great Britain -- Foreign relations -- Japan; Japan -- Foreign relations -- Great Britain
Of his school-days there is little to remark. Indeed his early
education seems to have been most irregular, having been subject to
long and frequent interruptions on account of ill-health, which
necessitated sea-voyages and other changes of air. Nevertheless the
diligence which was part of his nature compensated for these drawbacks
of his youth, and set its seal on his whole after-career.
On returning to his father's house at the age of fifteen, the boy began
his medical education, being, according to the fashion of the day,
apprenticed to his father, and at the same time entered as a student
at the Westminster Hospital and the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic
Hospital under that distinguished surgeon, G. J. Guthrie. His passion
for art had already asserted itself, and he was enabled to indulge it
by constant visits to Chantrey's studio, where, "amid the musical
sounds of the chisel on the marble, with snatches of airs from the
workmen, where all breathed a calm and happy repose, he passed
delightful hours." His half-holidays were spent at Chantrey's in
modelling.
In the following year he visited Paris, and seems ever after to have
looked back on the gay city as a kind of paradise, for there the world
first really opened to the young man of sixteen. Then began that life
of work and enjoyment, so blended as to be inseparable, which
continued without intermission for more than seventy years. In the
stimulating atmosphere of Paris, and its free and independent life,
the boy's faculties rapidly developed. He seemed, indeed, to expand
suddenly into full manhood. Destined for the medical profession, he
worked hard at anatomy, chemistry, and natural history, while taking
also a keen interest in artistic and literary subjects; mastered
French and Italian; and, in short, turned his twelve or eighteen
months' sojourn to highly practical account.
From a small pocket-book containing notes of the journey to France,
and part of his work in Paris, we give some extracts illustrative of
the boy's character and powers of observation.
It was on the 17th of August 1825 that the party embarked at the
Custom-House Stairs for Calais, the voyage occupying fourteen hours.
On landing the lad "amused himself by observing the effects in the sky
and the sea, and by picking up shells, bones of birds and animals,
which having remained in the sea until perfectly clean, looked
beautiful and white as ivory." Simple things interested him, and after
dinner at the Hôtel Meurice in Paris he "listened with much pleasure
to a man playing airs on what he called an American flute"--which he
goes on to describe: "The tones were mellow in the extreme, and the
airs he played I think were much superior in sweetness to any I have
ever heard from an instrument so clear," and so on. Obviously a
subjective impression; it is his own emancipation that beautifies the
simplest things and inspires the simplest sounds. Like the
convalescent in Gray--
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